A group of 22 members of the United States Congress urged the country's president Donald Trumpwho would be in sight.
The group included the Greek Americans Dina Titus, Chris Pappas, Gus Bilirakis and Jim Costa, as well as the member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Gregory Meek, and was sent following a telephone conversation between Trump and Erdogan earlier this week.
For years, President Erdogan has antagonized the neighbors of turkeys, including his NATO allied colleagues, violating the Greek sovereign airspace, illegally occupying parts of the Republic of Cyprus, harassing ships of the Aegean Sea and threatening to invade Greece and Israel.
He also criticized the doctrine of the blue homeland of turkeysE, which describes its assertions in the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean.
Doctrine, said the group, serves as [Erdogans] Political and military justification to dominate the eastern Mediterranean to the detriment of other regional powers.
As such, they said, Turkish ships question the exclusive Greek and Cypriot economic areas at a disturbing rate; Erdogan claims natural gas deposits off the coast of Cyprus; And he even signed a memorandum with the provisional government of Libyas in Tripoli which undermines the sovereign rights of Greece and Cyprus.
This policy flouts international law, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and promotes the objectives of Erdogans of regional domination and its neo-otoman objectives, they added, before focusing on Cyprus.
President Erdogan also continues to occupy the Republic of Cyprus wrongly and illegally. 51 years ago, Turkey has invaded Cyprus and launched a horrible campaign to ethnically clean the island's partsDestroy religious monuments, kidnap and disappear the Greek Cypriots who live there, they said,
They have added that since then, the TRNC has been judged illegal by numerous successive resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, and Turkey has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for its various crimes against humanity perpetrated in Cyprus.
They also refer to the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu in March, writing that Erdogan and his AK party have become more and more authoritarian in recent years by consolidating power Thanks to constitutional changes and the imprisonment of adversaries and criticisms.
The Imamoglus stop, they said, shows a sudden decision to consolidate more [Erdogans] power in Türkiye.
They then referred to the baseless surveys, the prosecution and convictions of human rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians and others, affirming that they constitute characteristics of society in Turkey.
Anti-terrorist and disinformation laws were used to reduce freedom of expression; The freedom of the Pacific Assembly was illegally limited; The distribution of aid after the earthquakes of February 2023 failed to adequately respond to the rights and needs of disabled people; And violence and women and girls remain widespread, they added.
As such, they urged Trump to raise a series of problems to Erdogan, in particular the policy of the problematic Erdogans blue fatherland and the danger he poses to Greek and Cypriot sovereignty and the integrity of their territorial waters and their maritime areas.
In addition, they said that Trump should speak to Erdogan about the continuous illegal occupation of Cyprus, respect for humanitarian rights and political opposition within an alleged democracy like Turkey, and Anti -Semitic and anti -Zogan anti -Semis rhetoric usually spits.
It is our collective responsibility to urge greater respect for international law as well as the rule of law in its own country. This would strengthen NATO, strengthen our partnerships with countries like Greece and Cyprus, guarantee the security of Israel more and promote world security, they said.
