SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Turkey slammed a U.S. bill that requires the State Department to draft a report on Turkish ultranationalist group Grey Wolves to decide whether or not the country should designate the group as a terrorist organization.
The U.S. House of Representatives adopted several amendments to the National Defense Authorization ACT (NDAA) on September 24, including one that demands the secretary of state Antony Blinken to prepare a report about the group’s activities, known as “Idealist Hearths”.
The amendment, offered by Congresswoman Dina Titus of Nevada, urges Blinken to draft the report “not later than 180 days after the date of enactment”.
The report should include “a detailed report of the activities of the Grey Wolves organization undertaken against U.S. interests, allies, and international partners, including a review of the criteria met for designation as a foreign terrorist organization,” the amendment states.
In a statement, the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs said it “regrets” that the amendment was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.
“It is regretful and worrying that such a groundless amendment incompatible with the spirit of the alliance between Turkey and the U.S. could even be considered in a house of the U.S. Congress,” it said on Wednesday.
“Our U.S. ally and all countries should be resolute in their fight against true terrorist organizations such as the PKK/PYD/YPG and FETO, instead of giving credit to imaginary and defamatory allegations,” it added.
It used acronyms to refer to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Democratic Union Party and People’s Protection Units and Gulen Movement, which Turkey consider as terrorist organizations.
The Grey Wolves was a nickname given to members of a fringe Turkish movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. The group used violence in the 1980s against leftist activists and ethnic minorities, according to DW.
It is closely linked to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of Devlet Bahceli, the junior coalition partner of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
In May, the European Parliament adopted a report calling on the EU to examine the possibility of adding the group to its terrorist list, as the group is a threat to Kurds and those who they consider an opponent.
It “is highly worried that the racist right-wing extremist Ülkücü movement, known as ‘Grey Wolves’ … is spreading in Turkey itself, but also in EU Member states”.
It also called on the European Union and its Member States to ban the group’s associations and organizations in EU countries.
The report also called for monitoring the Grey Wolves activities and to counter their influence, which it says “is specially threatening for people with a Kurdish, Armenians or Greek background and anyone they consider an opponent”.
