The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held its annual summit from July 7-8 in Ankara, Türkiye (Turkey). It is the 36th NATO summit and the second hosted by Türkiye following the 2004 summit in Istanbul. It produced a 6-point Ankara Summit Declaration which further pushed the military and aggressive agenda of NATO and US imperialism under Trump.
The Ankara summit was attended by 32 leaders of its member states including US Pres. Donald Trump. It was also attended by leaders of non-NATO member nations and governments including the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Syria and Ukraine.
The summit was met with big and small demonstrations and protests across Türkiye and parts of Kurdistan. In line with the peoples’ efforts to denounce the Ankara Summit and the US-NATO’s agenda amid heightening tensions worldwide caused by the US wars of aggression, the article War provocation and aggression top agenda of NATO Summit 2026 was published in Ang Bayan August 7, 2026. Below is the full interview conducted by AB Editors with the Marxist Leninist Communisty Party (MLKP)-Turkey/Kurdistan and the Communist Party of Turkey Marxist-Leninist (TKP-ML) for the article.
Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey/Kurdistan (MLKP T/K)
Ang Bayan (AB): What do you think is the significance of the NATO summit being held in Turkey, especially under Erdoğan?
MLKP T/K: The NATO summit is closely monitored each year by anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces worldwide, with mobilization and resistance against the alliance remaining a central priority irrespective of the host country. At this summit, the heads of state of the imperialist powers, led by the United States, come together as the declared enemies of the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world to coordinate their war plans and the division of the world according to their interests.
Today, at a time when military budgets and investments in weapons technologies are expanding rapidly, imperialist wars continue to devastate entire regions, and the threat of a wider global conflict is increasing, resistance to NATO has gained even greater importance. In the context of Turkey, this resistance has a particular historical significance, rooted in the country’s geostrategic position within NATO and the revolutionary movements that rose in response to the alliance’s policies and interventions.
After the Second World War, the United States emerged as the leading power of the Western bloc and took over Britain’s former role in the global anti-communist struggle. In 1947, as Britain was no longer able to provide military and economic support to Greece and Turkey, it called on the United States to intervene against the perceived expansion of Soviet influence. This led to the announcement of the Truman Doctrine, through which Washington committed itself to supporting countries “threatened by communism”. The Turkish bourgeoisie became one of the first major beneficiaries of this policy, strengthening its strategic relationship with the United States. This alliance was further consolidated with Turkey’s accession to NATO in 1952, establishing the country as a key US partner in the region and a central military actor on NATO’s southeastern flank during the Cold War.
As is well known, Türkiye holds a strategically critical geopolitical position. The main elements of this position include its sovereignty over the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, its location in the Mediterranean, the intersection of its borders with the former Soviet Union, and the fact that it is a predominantly Muslim country situated at the crossroads between Europe/the West and the Middle East.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States launched the strategy known as the Greater Middle East Project (BOP). Its objectives included reshaping the Middle East, integrating the region into the global capitalist economy, restructuring regional markets, securing critical energy resources and trade routes stretching from East Asia to the West, maintaining US dominance at geostrategic locations, particularly in the Mediterranean, limiting the influence of rival powers, especially the rising power of China, and promoting regional acceptance of the legitimacy of the Zionist state of Israel. When Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power in 2002, he declared himself a co-chair of the Greater Middle East Project. However, in the years that followed, significant geopolitical developments altered the course of the US strategy and the project’s implementation.
The now-defunct alliance between Erdoğan’s AKP and the US-based Gülen movement emerged as the primary force driving Turkey’s neoliberal transformation, accelerating privatization processes and implementing market-oriented economic reforms. During the Cold War, the US and NATO’s “containment” strategy against the Warsaw Pact included the creation of a “Green Belt” in the Middle East by supporting political Islamist forces as a barrier against communist influence. Fethullah Gülen and the expansion of religious orders and anti-communist fascist movements emerged within this political climate.
With support from the United States and NATO, the alliance also pursued a “New-Ottomanist” approach to expand Turkey’s regional influence, strengthening its military, economic, political, and cultural presence in the Middle East, the Balkans, and among Muslim communities.
The global economic crisis of 2007–2008 weakened US dominance and created space for increased Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East. After the 2016 coup attempt by the former AKP ally, the Gülenist movement, Turkey under fascist chief Erdoğan pursued a more independent foreign policy, seeking to take advantages from contradictions among Western imperialist powers and Russia. The purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system became the clearest example of tensions with the United States, resulting in sanctions and Turkey’s removal from the F-35 program.
Despite occasional tensions with NATO and attempts to develop relations with organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Turkey has remained important component within the NATO framework. But as global rivalries between imperialist blocs have intensified, Turkey’s ability to balance between different powers has become more limited. In recent years, particularly after developments in Syria and Rojava and changes in the regional balance of power, Turkey’s relationship with NATO has become closer again.
Turkey, as in the past, continues to function as a guardian of US and Western imperialist interests in the Middle East, with the second-largest army within NATO, alongside the genocidal state of Israel, despite the contradictions and tensions that exist between them. Both colonial states continue to function as counterrevolutionary centers in the region. In view of the war of aggression waged by the fascist alliance of the USA and Israel against Iran, we see an increasing role as a base being assigned to Turkey in the imperialist liquidation and redesign attempts in the region. The deployment of new Patriot systems to the İncirlik and Kürecik bases following the US and Israeli attack on Iran once again revealed Turkey’s role as a base for imperialist war strategies.
AB: How did the Erdoğan regime prepare for the summit? How much was spent by the government?
MLKP T/K: The fascist state has drawn lessons from previous anti-NATO resistance in Turkey and adapted its methods to the new conditions, combining repressive measures with the technological advantages of the bourgeoisie. The NATO summit was last held in Turkey in 2004. Over twenty years ago, the objective and subjective conditions for struggle faced by the revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan were considerably more favorable. As a result, the movement was able to organize a major resistance at many levels, broad mass mobilization, militant street confrontations, and political-military actions by Marxist-Leninists. As state intelligence documents reveal, these effective actions, waged on behalf of the oppressed peoples of the world suffering under imperialism, brought the summit to the brink of cancellation.
This year, the fascist chief regime took extensive measures to prevent images similar to those witnessed in 2004 and to demonstrate its control and strength. Shortly before the summit, more than 200 people were arrested in Ankara in anti-terror operations, followed by a broader wave of detentions. Among those arrested are dozens of youth activists, independent journalists, artists, lawyers, and academics. Beyond arrests, the state introduced a range of additional security measures, including bans on demonstrations, road closures, and the deployment of barricades. These measures effectively placed Ankara under a de facto state of emergency, in which the most basic democratic rights and freedoms had been suspended during the summit period. With arrests, detentions, de facto street bans, and the imposition of uniform clothing requirements on taxi drivers, the preparations for the NATO summit were as much part of a war strategy as the summit’s outcomes themselves.
Regarding the financial preparations, the state announced an official budget of 11.7 billion TL ($246.1 million). In addition, numerous other expenditures were made for which no official figures have been disclosed. For example, all 32 heads of state attending the summit received two personal gifts from Erdoğan. The first was a revolver. The Gümüşay (“Silver Moon”) is Turkey’s first domestically produced revolver, manufactured by Sarsılmaz, one of the country’s largest military industry companies. The choice of gift reflected Turkey’s military ambitions and the growing importance attached to its arms industry. Each recipient received a weapon with a personalized engraving and a box of ammunition, making clear that it was not intended merely as a decorative item. Trump even received a gold-plated version of the weapon, reflecting Erdoğan’s sycophantic attempt to strengthen his relationship with his fascist US counterpart.
The absurd part is that, with the exception of Trump, none of the heads of state could take the weapons back to their own countries. The gifts were either stored at their respective embassies or handed over to police authorities at European airports. The cost of these 32 weapons was estimated at between $64,000 and $160,000. As expected, these expenses do not appear in the official budget. The second gift was a leather-bound copy of “The Politics of Courage: Erdoğan and the Rise of Türkiye”, the costs of which have also not been disclosed.
Returning to the official budget, 198.4 million TL ($4.17 million) was spent solely on installing and removing posters on streets, buses, and police vehicles. Additional expenditures included road expansion, resurfacing, infrastructure projects, and the repainting of building façades, although no official figures for these costs have been provided. Around 70,000 state forces were deployed to ensure security during the summit in Ankara. The largest portion of spending went toward the construction of a new airport on the site of a former military airbase in Ankara’s Etimesgut district, near the summit venue. The airport was intended to receive aircraft carrying delegations from NATO member states.
The monthly wage of an ordinary worker is approximately 17,002.12 TL ($357.69). Many shop owners were forced to close their businesses for days or experienced a sharp decline in customers due to roadblocks and security measures. They, along with countless other workers whose daily lives were severely disrupted, received no compensation. On the contrary, the workers and the poor were removed from public spaces, while street animals were also cleared away in an effort to create a controlled image of the city for the summit.
AB: Has there been a long time campaign by the Turkish people to call for Turkey to get out of the NATO since joining in 1952?
MLKP T/K: Since Turkey’s accession to NATO, there has been a continuous history of resistance among the peoples of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan against NATO membership and its policies. “Anti-NATO” has been written on the banners of revolutionary-democratic mass movements. Particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, major protests against NATO bases took place in Turkey led by the rising youth movement, and imperialist dependency became a central political question. Anti-NATO and anti-imperialist sentiments gained broad support, and solidarity with struggles against imperialist intervention became an important part of the political landscape. Thus, the struggle against NATO and US imperialism became a significant element of Turkey’s revolutionary legacy, led by vanguards that emerged from the student movement, including revolutionary leaders such as İbrahim Kaypakkaya, Deniz Gezmiş, and Mahir Çayan.
Among the most well-known examples of this resistance were the repeated struggles against the US Sixth Fleet, to prevent it from docking in Turkey. Actions were carried out such as taking American soldiers’ caps, throwing red paint on them, cutting their uniforms with razor blades, and surrounding and assaulting them, even throwing US sailors into the sea.
Another constitutive moment in Turkey’s revolutionary history came once again in connection with actions against NATO, when Sinan Cemgil and his comrades planned an operation against the Kürecik Radar Base, attempting to take US soldiers hostage in order to prevent the execution of Deniz Gezmiş and his comrades. They were martyred in Nurhak in an act of revolutionary commitment and self-sacrifice, leaving behind a lasting legacy of comradeship within Turkey’s revolutionary tradition.
These mass struggles remain important reference points within Turkey’s revolutionary history to this day and have achieved significant gains. Measures aimed at appeasing popular opposition, such as preventing uniformed soldiers from appearing visibly on the streets, introducing changes to procedures applied in cases of crimes committed by military personnel, imposing tax obligations on commercial goods taken out of Turkey, and requiring Turkey’s approval for the use of bases, were among the results of these struggles. The call for Turkey’s withdrawal from NATO continues to be an important component of democratic and revolutionary struggles in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan.
AB: How did the people react to the summit being held in Turkey? How many were arrested in the protests mounted against the summit?
MLKP T/K: Despite the anticipated aggressive response of the Turkish fascist state to even the slightest expression of resistance, widespread protests were nevertheless organized for weeks. For example, the broad alliance “No to NATO” called for countrywide demonstrations. Protests and rallies took place in almost all major cities across Turkey, as well as in several cities in Northern Kurdistan. Youth commemorations took place at the grave of the revolutionary student leaders. Given the immense scale of state repression, the breadth of mobilization and the numerous smaller and bigger gatherings before and during the summit represented an important success.
In the period leading up to the NATO summit, the fascist state carried out large-scale operations against people accused of participating in resistance activities. The major operation took place on June 23, 2026, in Ankara before the summit, 225 people were detained in simultaneous police and gendarmerie operations carried out at numerous addresses. According to human rights organizations, at least 979 people were detained throughout the country between 12 June and 9 July, based on the cases that could be documented, with the number of people held in pretrial detention continuing to change. Following the summit, ongoing actions calling for the release of the “NATO prisoners” are being organized by the Alliance against Imperialist War and NATO.
Meanwhile, the financing of the summit in particular generated widespread anger among the broad masses. Turkey is among the countries experiencing the highest levels of inflation, ranking as the country with the third-highest inflation rate globally, while the masses face a severe impoverishment crisis. Many people are forced into debt simply to afford their basic daily needs. At the same time, they witnessed the state spending billions on hosting the summit while allocating even greater resources to future military and arms expenditures. Furthermore, the peoples of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan do not want to be reduced to a pawn within the imperialist world system.
The NATO summit took place against the backdrop of an intensifying social polarization in the country. The state under the fascist chief Erdoğan is expanding its repressions even on the bourgeois opposition represented by the CHP. Through targeted legal maneuvers and waves of arrests, a polarization has emerged, with hardened fronts against Erdoğan fascism forming within the masses. At the same time, the peace process between the Kurdish national democratic movement under the leadership of Abdullah Öcalan and the Turkish colonial state continues, without having achieved significant democratic progress. These developments had both direct and indirect influences on the political and social situation around the NATO resistance.
AB: Why is it important for the Turkish proletariat, led by your party, to denounce the NATO and call for its abolition?
MLKP T/K: As a multinational Turkish Republic that has functioned as a neo-colony of US and European imperialism, and as a bourgeois regime founded upon denialist and colonialist foundations, it has carried within itself the elements of a structural crisis since its very inception. The colonization of Northern Kurdistan through its economic and political annexation, alongside the elimination and assimilation of non-Muslim peoples, constitutes an existential component of the foundations of the bourgeois republic.
With its accession to NATO, the Turkish bourgeois state not only integrated its military doctrine, strategy, and structures into the alliance but also utilized NATO as a framework for maintaining its colonial policies through its counter-guerrilla apparatus. In this regard, regardless of earlier periods, NATO has for half a century been a participant in and an active force behind the war waged against the revolutionary movement and the Kurdish national democratic movement.
US-backed military coups have marked Turkey’s modern history, while structures such as the Turkish Gladio/counter-guerrilla were organized as shadow formations embedded throughout the state apparatus. Within this framework, military coups, and particularly the fascist military coup of 12 September 1980, occupy a unique and decisive place.
Especially in Northern Kurdistan, the counter-revolutionary apparatus composed of the village guard system, JİTEM (Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Command), and special forces, developed as an extension of the war against the national democratic movement, is a direct product of the internal war strategy coordinated through NATO command structures.
For the proletariat in Turkey, therefore, opposing NATO carries a particular historical importance. NATO is not a distant institution or an abstract external force; Turkey itself is a member of this military alliance and remains deeply integrated into its structures. As long as Turkey continues to be bound to NATO and the system of imperialist globalization, the country’s resources will continue to be directed toward militarization and military interests rather than toward meeting the needs and improving the livelihoods of the people.
Therefore, the struggle against NATO is not merely an international question; it is directly connected to the everyday demands of the working class: the demand for a democratic and just peace in the region, for public resources to serve society rather than the machinery of war, and for a future free from imperialist domination and exploitation. A genuine anti-NATO movement can only develop by becoming inseparably linked with the struggle against Turkey and Northern Kurdistan’s financial-economic dependency and military integration. This, in the conditions of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan under the rule of the fascist chief regime, is a question of an anti-imperialist political revolution, that is, a question of power.
Thus, according to our anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, and gender-liberationist democratic revolution program, Turkey will withdraw from NATO and will not belong to any imperialist or reactionary bloc, whether military or political. The bases and military installations of the United States and NATO will be dismantled; all secret treaties will be exposed; and all secret and open commitments will be annulled.
AB: Why is it important for people of non-NATO member nations, like the Philippines, to mount an opposition to the NATO?
MLKP T/K: NATO, above all, represents US interests and hegemony. Its global record is characterized by interventions in various countries, support for coups, counter-guerrilla operations, campaigns to suppress popular opposition, and interference in democratic processes. NATO is a war machine that threatens the security of the peoples of the world. The golden weapon and bullet presented as a gift by Erdoğan at the end of the summit are also symbolic of the developments that lie ahead. It can be clearly foreseen that NATO and its representatives will bring nothing to the peoples of the world, the international working class, and the oppressed except the intensification of exploitation, the expansion of the ranks of the poor by tens of millions, the deepening of poverty, the escalation of fascist policies, increased repression and state terror, the sharpening of contradictions between the state and the people, and growing attacks on and restrictions of rights and freedoms.
Therefore, for people in countries that are not members of NATO, resistance to NATO and US imperialism is particularly significant, because non-member states are often among those most directly threatened by its militarism, warmongering, and imperialist interventions. NATO is not merely a military alliance whose activities concern only its member states; it is an instrument of imperialist exploitation and oppression, as well as a central force in the preparations for a potential world war. The Philippines in particular will increasingly be caught between the lines of confrontation as a result of the US encirclement policy directed against China.
The world is experiencing a period of intensified war preparations, with the possibility of a third world war greater than in decades. These preparations are taking increasingly concrete forms, as imperialist wars rage across the world and NATO plays a central role in this process. The recent NATO summit made this reality particularly visible. The summit produced new commitments regarding the war in Ukraine and further intensified NATO’s hostile stance toward Iran. Member states agreed to more than $50 billion in new procurement for advanced weapons and military technologies, while pledging €70 billion in military support for Ukraine in 2026 and committing to maintain at least this level in 2027. At the same time, the summit politically hardened NATO’s position toward Iran, with fascist Trump declaring the interim memorandum with Tehran null and void, while NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte defended US strikes as “absolutely necessary.” The peoples of the world have no interest in NATO’s wars or in the billions spent on weapons and militarization. Our joint interests lie in self-determination, liberation from imperialist domination, and national and social emancipation.
The struggle against imperialism is one of the most urgent tasks of our time, and we believe that all revolutionary forces around the world would agree with this assessment. Resistance to conferences such as the NATO summit is necessary, especially in demonstrating that the working class and oppressed peoples are a social force that are decisive. Therefore, the anti-imperialist struggle cannot be limited to merely reacting to such events. The warmongers cannot be given a single day of respite; determined and sustained resistance must be organized.
Amid inter-imperialist contradictions, becoming a reserve force for any imperialist or capitalist camp must be rejected; instead, a third front for revolution must be built and strengthened. A specific task of our time is to strengthen this front of workers and oppressed peoples, make it as powerful as possible, and advance revolutionary internationalism.
In this regard, we salute the heroic revolutionaries of the Philippines, who hold one of the most advanced positions in our joint anti-imperialist struggle and continue to inspire peoples around the world.
Communist Party of Turkey Marxist-Leninist (TKP-ML)
Ang Bayan (AB): What do you think is the significance of the NATO summit being held in Turkey, especially under Erdoğan?
TKP-ML: The NATO summit being held in Turkey has significance beyond the location of an international meeting. Turkey has historically occupied a strategic position within NATO, particularly because of its geographical position between Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Black Sea. Since joining NATO in 1952, the Turkish state has functioned as one of the alliance’s important regional military and political pillars.
This relationship also has an internal dimension. Turkey was not simply incorporated into NATO as part of an external defence arrangement. During the Cold War, NATO’s anti-communist strategy became intertwined with the development of the Turkish security state. The counter-guerrilla structures, military coups and repression of communists, revolutionaries and the Kurdish national struggle cannot be separated from this history. The 12 March 1971 and 12 September 1980 military coups in particular demonstrate how this NATO-oriented security architecture operated not only against an alleged external enemy but also against class struggle and revolutionary and progressive forces within the country.
Under Erdoğan this relationship contains contradictions, but the strategic relationship remains. The Turkish state pursues its own regional ambitions and at times enters contradictions with the US and European imperialist powers, while simultaneously remaining an important component of NATO’s military architecture. Hosting the summit therefore demonstrates that these contradictions have not fundamentally displaced Turkey from the imperialist military system.
This is particularly significant today because the international situation is characterised by sharpening inter-imperialist contradictions. The rivalry between the US-led Western imperialist bloc and other imperialist powers, particularly Russia and China, is intensifying. From Ukraine and the Black Sea through the Middle East and the Red Sea to the Pacific, military competition is expanding. The danger of a new imperialist repartition war is becoming increasingly concrete.
The Ankara summit must therefore be understood within this context: not simply as diplomacy, but as part of the consolidation and preparation of an imperialist war architecture.
AB: How did the Erdoğan regime prepare for the summit? How much was spent by the government?
TKP-ML: The Erdoğan government prepared for the NATO summit not simply through logistical arrangements but through an extensive security operation in Ankara. In the period immediately preceding the summit, the authorities tightened security around the Presidential Complex, hotels and routes used by delegations and imposed extensive restrictions on demonstrations and public gatherings.
Most significantly, 209 people were detained in Ankara in raids ahead of the summit, after prosecutors issued detention warrants for 241 people. The authorities stated that the operations targeted people allegedly connected to organisations including ISIS and DHKP-C. However, reporting also documented the detention of left-wing activists and opposition figures in the broader crackdown surrounding the summit.
The measures extended beyond the raids. Demonstrations, rallies, press statements, sit-ins and various other forms of public political activity were restricted around the summit period. The result was an extraordinary security environment surrounding a meeting of an organisation that presents itself internationally as a defender of democracy, freedom and security.
This contradiction is important. The summit provides a concrete contemporary example of what we have historically seen in Turkey: militarisation directed outward is accompanied by the strengthening of mechanisms of repression internally.
On the question of how much the government spent specifically on hosting the summit, there is no reliable publicly documented total that we can cite. We should therefore not invent or speculate about a figure.
But there is a larger economic question. NATO’s present strategy involves an enormous expansion of military expenditure. The Ankara summit continued the implementation of the commitment adopted at the 2025 Hague summit to move toward spending 5% of GDP on defence and defence-related security expenditure by 2035. The fundamental question for the working class is therefore much larger than the administrative cost of a two-day summit: enormous social resources are increasingly being redirected toward militarisation and preparation for imperialist war.
AB: Has there been a long-time campaign by the people of Turkey to call for its pull-out from NATO since joining in 1952?
TKP-ML: Yes. Opposition to NATO in Turkey has a long history, particularly within the revolutionary, communist, socialist, anti-imperialist and progressive movements.
This opposition became especially important during the revolutionary struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. NATO membership, US military bases and Turkey’s political and military dependence on US imperialism became central questions for the revolutionary movement.
But this opposition cannot simply be understood as opposition to membership in an international organisation. NATO became intertwined with the anti-communist apparatus of the state itself. The history of Gladio and the counter-guerrilla is particularly important here. Similar “stay-behind” structures existed throughout Europe, while in Turkey the counter-guerrilla became deeply connected with repression directed against communists, revolutionaries, workers, students and the Kurdish national struggle.
The struggle against NATO therefore developed alongside struggles against US military bases, imperialist dependence, fascism and the counter-guerrilla state.
For this reason, the demand to leave NATO has historically been connected to a much broader struggle against imperialism and the social and political order through which imperialist domination is reproduced within Turkey. The demand is not simply that Turkey should pursue another foreign policy while leaving the existing social order untouched. From a revolutionary perspective, NATO membership is one expression of a much deeper relationship of imperialist domination and collaboration.
AB: How did the people react to the summit being held in Turkey? How many were arrested in the protests mounted against the summit?
TKP-ML: There was organised opposition to the summit from anti-imperialist, socialist, communist, trade-union and other progressive forces. The scale of the security measures themselves demonstrates that the government anticipated political opposition to the summit.
Here we should be precise about the numbers. The strongest independently documented figure is 209 people detained in coordinated pre-summit raids in Ankara. These were not 209 protesters arrested at one demonstration, and it would be inaccurate to describe them as such. They were detained during security operations immediately preceding the summit.
At the same time, demonstrations and other forms of public political activity were subjected to extensive restrictions, and police intervened against anti-NATO protests during the summit period.
This distinction is politically important because repression did not begin when protesters entered the streets. Preventing and restricting mobilisation itself formed part of the state’s preparation for the summit.
The reaction therefore needs to be understood within a wider political context. Opposition to NATO in Turkey is not simply opposition to a diplomatic gathering. NATO has a concrete historical meaning for the peoples of Turkey: military bases, counter-guerrilla organisation, anti-communism, support for the security state and Turkey’s participation in imperialist military interventions.
The protests surrounding the summit were therefore part of a much longer anti-imperialist struggle.
AB: Why is it important for the proletariat of Turkey, led by your Party, to denounce NATO and call for its abolition?
TKP-ML: For the proletariat and oppressed peoples of Turkey, opposition to NATO is inseparable from the struggle against imperialism. NATO is a military-political organisation of imperialism and, concretely, the most powerful institutionalised military bloc of the Western imperialist powers.
The working class therefore has no interest in choosing between competing imperialist camps. The sharpening contradictions between the US and its allies on the one hand and Russia and China on the other do not represent a struggle between imperialism and anti-imperialism. They are contradictions between imperialist powers over markets, resources, strategic territories, spheres of influence and political domination.
This distinction is fundamental. Opposing NATO cannot mean supporting Russia or China. Every imperialist power and every imperialist bloc must be opposed.
At the same time, recognising all imperialist powers as enemies does not mean refusing to analyse the concrete balance of forces. NATO remains the world’s strongest, most institutionalised and most globally developed military alliance, with hundreds of military installations, enormous military expenditure, nuclear capabilities, intelligence networks and extensive capacity for intervention.
For the proletariat and oppressed peoples in Turkey there is an additional historical dimension. NATO’s history in Turkey is inseparable from anti-communism, counter-guerrilla structures, military coups and the strengthening of the reactionary state apparatus. NATO’s “internal front” was directed precisely against communists, revolutionaries, the workers’ movement and other forces challenging the existing order.
The question is therefore not simply one of foreign policy. The struggle against NATO is simultaneously an international anti-imperialist struggle and a component of the revolutionary struggle against the existing state and social order.
Our objective cannot be to reform NATO, democratise it or replace its leadership. Nor can the answer be another imperialist military bloc. NATO must be abolished, while the struggle itself must ultimately be directed against the imperialist system that continuously reproduces military blocs, occupations and wars.
AB: Why is it important for people of non-NATO member nations, like the Philippines, to mount an opposition to NATO?
TKP-ML: Because NATO’s consequences are not confined to the territories of its member states.
Imperialism operates internationally. Military alliances, foreign bases, bilateral defence agreements, intelligence structures, proxy forces, economic institutions and regional partnerships form interconnected mechanisms through which imperialist powers defend and expand their interests.
For peoples in countries such as the Philippines, therefore, the fundamental issue is not whether their country formally carries the label of a NATO member. The question is whether their countries, territories and peoples are being incorporated into the strategic rivalry between imperialist powers.
This becomes particularly important as inter-imperialist competition increasingly extends toward the Indo-Pacific. The intensifying rivalry between the United States and China threatens to transform countries throughout the region into military platforms, logistical corridors and ultimately potential battlefields.
The peoples of the Philippines have no interest in becoming instruments of either side of this rivalry. Opposition to NATO should therefore form part of a broader struggle against imperialist military alliances, foreign bases, militarisation and all attempts to subordinate oppressed nations to the strategic interests of competing imperialist powers.
And this is precisely where international solidarity becomes concrete rather than rhetorical. A struggle against NATO in Turkey and a struggle against imperialist militarisation in the Philippines take place under different national conditions, but both confront expressions of the same imperialist world system.
The working class and oppressed peoples therefore need their own independent political position. Our choice cannot be Washington against Beijing, NATO against Russia, or one imperialist bloc against another. Our position must be based on the independent interests of the proletariat and oppressed peoples.
One issue that deserves particular attention is the relationship between imperialist war and women’s oppression.
Imperialist war does not affect women merely as an unfortunate side effect. Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, Kurdistan and Turkey demonstrate different mechanisms through which war, occupation, forced migration, counter-guerrilla warfare and militarisation restructure women’s lives.
Women experience displacement and poverty, the destruction of social infrastructure, increased responsibility for care work, sexual and gendered violence and political repression. But women are also political subjects who organise and resist these conditions. This distinction is essential.
At the same time, imperialism increasingly attempts to appropriate the language of women’s liberation.
Afghanistan provides perhaps the clearest example. The oppression of Afghan women under the Taliban was and remains real. But this oppression was transformed into an ideological justification for imperialist intervention. Afghan women ceased to appear as political subjects capable of struggling for their own emancipation and instead became represented as victims requiring rescue by Western military power.
The contradiction is therefore not between defending women’s rights and opposing imperialism. On the contrary, women’s liberation cannot be delivered by the bombs, occupation armies and military institutions of imperialism.
We see a more sophisticated version of the same contradiction today in NATO’s “Women, Peace and Security” agenda. Women’s participation and gender perspectives are increasingly incorporated into military and security structures, while the imperialist character and function of those structures remain untouched.
The question therefore cannot simply be how many women become generals, soldiers or members of security bureaucracies. Equal participation in an apparatus of imperialist war is not women’s liberation. Incorporating women more equally into the machinery of war does not abolish the machinery.
This points toward the broader political question confronting us today.
We are entering a period in which inter-imperialist contradictions are becoming increasingly acute. The war in Ukraine, conflicts throughout the Middle East, militarisation of the Red Sea and Black Sea, and growing US-China confrontation in the Pacific are not isolated developments. They reflect an intensifying struggle over markets, resources, strategic routes and spheres of influence.
The danger of a new imperialist repartition war is therefore becoming increasingly serious.
Under these conditions, anti-imperialism cannot mean opposing one imperialist camp while accommodating another. Nor can internationalism consist simply of declarations of solidarity between organisations.
One of the urgent tasks facing communists, revolutionaries, anti-imperialist forces, women’s organisations and the oppressed peoples is therefore the construction of practical international anti-imperialist unity: strengthening common struggle against imperialist war, militarisation, occupation and the political and economic structures that sustain them.
The alternative offered to the peoples cannot be NATO or another imperialist bloc. It cannot be Washington or Moscow, Washington or Beijing.
The alternative must be the independent struggle of the proletariat and oppressed peoples themselves against imperialism and the system that continuously produces exploitation, reaction and war.
source: NDFP