Dear Comrades,

Please find attached the latest issue of our publication. It is dedicated to the NATO summit in Turkey and the resistance.

We call on all revolutionaries, anti-imperialists, and democrats, as well as everyone who opposes fascism and war, to participate in the mobilizations against NATO. We call on you to organize demonstrations and other actions in your respective countries and ask you to send us your statements, reports, and messages of solidarity. At the European level, an anti-NATO alliance is calling for joint actions on July 4.

We will continue to keep you informed about the latest developments.

In solidarity

MLKP Turkey/Kurdistan
International Office

International OfficeMobilization Against the Anti-Communist NATO Alliance

The next NATO summit will take place on July 7 and 8. This year, the fascist Turkish state is hosting this imperialist war conference. Even in the run-up to the summit, over 200 revolutionaries and anti-imperialists were arrested in Ankara to nip any resistance in the bud; further widespread bans and arrests are to follow. These attacks were expected. The state is well aware that revolutionary forces, especially communists, will lead the mobilization and mount resolute resistance against the summit. Despite the massive repression, there are widespread mobilizations and alliances that are already organizing numerous rallies and actions in the run-up to the summit and calling for mass demonstrations in Istanbul.

NATO as a Tool of Class Struggle

Conflicts between states are ultimately a reflection of the class struggle. Conflicts between bourgeois states are an expression of internal class struggles between different “national” factions of the world bourgeoisie. A look at the history of capitalism shows that every national bourgeoisie attempts to overcome crises by shifting their burdens internally onto the proletariat and the working masses, and externally onto other countries and peoples. It knows no other way out. This fundamental tendency, which we have observed since the advent of monopoly capitalism, is intensifying under the conditions of imperialist globalization; its internal counterpart is fascism, and its external counterparts are plunder, robbery, and wars of partition.

All along, alliances or agreements have been formed for this class struggle, taking various forms and serving different purposes. Their history shows, however, that they are not permanent. Alliances are tied to specific conditions and balances of power. When the balance of power shifts, so do the alliances, eventually leading to their dissolution.

The Historical Distinctiveness of NATO

If one disregards the reactionary Frankfurt Agreement between the German and French bourgeoisie against the Paris Commune, NATO is the first alliance organization to emerge from the global bourgeoisie’s goal of encircling the USSR and combating communism. It became the most important instrument of the Cold War. NATO, however, is no ordinary alliance within the framework of the traditional bourgeois system of states. Rather, it marks a qualitative break in the history of inter-state alliances. Its emergence occurred during a historical period in which the contradictions between the imperialist powers temporarily receded into the background, while the common front against the communist movement came to the fore.

NATO’s political and ideological roots reach deep into the history of the modern class struggle. Let us recall the Communist Manifesto: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.” NATO is nothing more than the instrument of the world bourgeoisie for waging this hunt in the age of imperialism.

From World War II to the Cold War

As early as World War II, voices began to emerge within the imperialist camp calling for a future strike against the Soviet Union. U.S. General Patton openly advocated that it was not the German fascists but the USSR that must be fought. Although his ideas found no support at the time among either the military or political leadership of the U.S., his positions undoubtedly count among the ideological precursors of the anti-communist Cold War and NATO.

The United Nations, established during World War II, was still based on a compromise between the USSR, the U.S., and Great Britain. Its comparatively “democratic” structure reflects this balance of power. NATO, on the other hand, emerged as an explicitly anti-communist and counterrevolutionary organization of the global bourgeoisie, centered on the alliance between the United States and Great Britain.

The Founding of NATO

The political, military, and economic foundations of NATO were laid during and immediately after World War II. On April 4, 1949, the alliance was finally officially established through the Washington Treaty by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.

In its early stages, NATO did not yet have a well-defined organizational structure, nor was there a comprehensive plan for its organizational development. Nevertheless, with its far-reaching goals, the fight against communism and the containment of the USSR, it was, as the first international anti-communist military, economic, political, and ideological alliance in history, organizationally open in every respect to further development and expansion. As the first international anti-communist military, political, economic, and ideological alliance in history, it created the organizational conditions for a global struggle against the communist movement.

The Fundamental Elements of Relations Between NATO and Turkey

NATO is one of the most important instruments of the imperialist West, which formed as a political bloc after the Second Imperialist War of Partition. It was founded as a military-political alliance, an imperialist organization for aggression and war, against the socialist USSR and the people’s democracies of Asia.

The relationship between Turkey and the United States is crucial to understanding the relationship between Turkey and NATO. NATO embodies not only U.S. hegemony within the Western imperialist alliance system but also the hierarchical order that the United States imposes on the other imperialist and neocolonial states.

The Turkish bourgeois state inherited the legacy of the Ottoman Empire. This legacy consisted primarily of the empire’s foreign debt. Under the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish Republic agreed to settle 65 percent of the Ottoman Empire’s foreign debt. Faced with a shortage of foreign investment and a gap in capital accumulation that arose after the outbreak of the Great Depression in 1929, the Turkish bourgeois state turned to monopolistic state capitalism, and at the same time, countless state-owned enterprises were established with loans and support from the USSR.

During the Second Imperialist War of Partition, Turkey’s ruling classes, which were closely intertwined economically and militarily with German monopoly capital, adhered to the non-aggression pact with Hitlerite fascism until the final months of the war. Only when Germany’s defeat had become inevitable did Turkey sever diplomatic relations with Germany in 1944 and symbolically declare war on the German Reich on February 23, 1945.

Also on February 23, 1945, it concluded an agreement with the United States on mutual aid and cooperation, which, among other things, regulated the exchange of military goods and strategic raw materials. Although the Turkish bourgeois state maintained the appearance of neutrality during the war, it was closely integrated into the imperialist world system and, after the war’s end, became increasingly dependent on U.S. imperialism.

Until its accession to NATO in 1952, Turkey sought to prepare for its admission by expanding its bilateral relations with Western imperialist states and through security policy initiatives in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. At the same time, it sought to integrate itself into the regional security structures created by the Western alliance system.

The Turkish government underscored its unequivocal alignment with the Western bloc by sending troops to the Korean War. Against the backdrop of the bloc confrontation that had emerged following the Chinese Revolution and the onset of the Cold War, the deployment of Turkish soldiers to Korea represented a deliberate political decision in favor of the U.S.-led imperialist camp. It played a decisive role in enabling Turkey, under the government of Adnan Menderes, to join NATO in 1952.

Turkey’s Role in Advancing NATO’s Objectives

Turkey occupies a geostrategically crucial position within NATO. Control over the Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelles, its location on the Mediterranean, its shared borders with the former Soviet Union, and the fact that it is a country connecting Europe, or the West, with the Middle East and whose population is predominantly Muslim are the main characteristics of this position. As part of NATO’s strategy to “encircle” the USSR, Turkey was able to function both as an outpost on the Southern Flank and as an “instrument” for gaining influence in the region’s predominantly Muslim countries. Turkey is the first “Muslim country” to have officially recognized Zionist Israel. Even though Israel is not a NATO member, the protection of Zionist Israel is among the tasks assigned to Turkey in the Middle East. The NATO base at Incirlik was the most important security guarantee for Israel during the Cold War and in the years that followed. Furthermore, during the Cold War, the Turkish bourgeois state was at the center of the conflict and tensions in a world divided into two systems.

The occupation of Cyprus and the associated tensions triggered the first crisis in relations between NATO and Turkey. British colonialism lost its hegemony in the region, and calls for independence began to emerge in Cyprus as well. In the face of Greece’s increasing interference and the military threats from the Makarios government, British imperialism sought to preserve its influence by further stoking contradictions between Greece and Turkey and leaving the Turkish bourgeois state with a “Cyprus problem.” The Turkish bourgeois state responded to these developments by inciting and organizing pogroms against Greeks in Turkey.

Today, the Turkish bourgeois state has the second-largest military force in NATO after the United States. It has participated in all historically significant NATO missions, such as the military interventions in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and the Baltic states. Turkish officers hold positions in various NATO command structures. In addition, Turkey has participated in NATO training programs and exercises. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had rotted from within, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO was realigned to serve U.S. global hegemony and the interests of Western imperialism. Turkey was assigned a strategic role, particularly in the Yugoslav Wars, the Gulf Wars, and other regional conflicts. It became an instrument through which the U.S. and European imperialists sought to exploit the power shifts and geopolitical opportunities created by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact for their own interests.

NATO Bases and Military Integration in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan

Even before Turkey’s accession to NATO, the territories of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan fell within the strategic sphere of influence of U.S. and British imperialists. As a NATO member, Turkey made its territory available for bases, agreeing to cover the costs of land expropriation and to provide services such as supply, maintenance, transportation, and logistics, while ceding control over the use of these facilities to the United States. These bases were established in strategically important regions such as Incirlik, Çiğli, Karamürsel, Yalova, Diyarbakır, and Sinop. With this move, Turkey made its territory available to NATO’s military structure but effectively transferred control of the bases to the U.S. Some of these bases were subsequently transferred to the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) after the 1990s.

With Turkey’s accession to NATO, the Turkish civilian-controlled military restructured itself in accordance with NATO’s military doctrines and standards, and military equipment and logistics were further developed on this basis. The Turkish General Staff was directly integrated into NATO defense planning, and the TSK was expanded on this basis. Intelligence services and communications were integrated into the NATO network. Military academies began implementing the U.S. and NATO curricula. NATO standards for training and maneuvers were adopted. In the wake of the Cyprus crisis and during the ten-year embargo imposed by NATO, the Turkish bourgeois state focused on establishing companies intended to expand the military-industrial complex. TUSAŞ, ASELSAN, and APSİLAN, companies that Tayyip Erdoğan proudly points to today, were founded during this period. However, these companies, too, have become financially, technologically, and logistically dependent on U.S. imperialism and were operated as part of NATO.

The NATO base in Incirlik is today the most strategically important base on NATO’s Southern Flank and the central instrument of its dominance. The base, which also functions as an intelligence and command center, is, with the nuclear weapons stationed there, literally NATO’s counterrevolutionary headquarters in the region with regard to the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Central Asia.

Gladio—Counterguerrilla Operations in Turkey

One of the most striking aspects of NATO’s presence in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan is counterguerrilla activity. Organizations established under NATO’s leadership and direct command to carry out illegal and irregular “tasks” as part of the “internal operations” of the “fight against communism” in imperialist and bourgeois states are referred to as Gladio. In Europe, the CIA built a special unit, referred to as “Super NATO”, based on the body of anti-communist intelligence work gathered after the Second Imperialist World War. This special unit also included anti-communists from the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. Reinhard Gehlen, one of Hitler’s most fanatical intelligence operatives, who surrendered to the United States at the end of the war along with his archives, was redeployed to Germany in 1946 by decision of the CIA and founded the precursor to the German intelligence service.

The priority of the “fight against communism,” pursued by NATO in the context of the Cold War, also gained increasing significance for Turkey’s domestic policy beginning in the 1960s. In this context, the state and security policy structure were gradually adapted to NATO doctrines. The period of military intervention in 1971, as well as the period marked by the military coup of September 12, 1980, underscored the restructuring of the political system and the close alignment of Turkish security and military policy with U.S. strategic interests within the framework of the Western alliance system.

To strategically “encircle” the Warsaw Pact, the tactic of a “Green Belt” in the Middle East was pursued. By promoting, supporting, and mobilizing political Islamist governments against the “communist threat,” a buffer zone was established south of the Soviet Union. Fethullah Gülen is a product of this political climate. Under the conditions of that time, religious sects and anti-communist fascist movements found room to flourish.

The Relationship Between the Fascist Ruling Regime and NATO

The AKP, a party of bourgeois restoration, came to power in the new century by aligning itself with U.S. interests and strategy in the Middle East. After the final collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. imperialism had the following priorities: the reshaping of the Middle East and its integration into the imperialist system; the restructuring of the regional market based on this; the securing of critical energy and trade routes; the securing of U.S. hegemony at critical geostrategic points; limiting the influence of rival countries, above all rising Chinese imperialism, and asserting the legitimacy of Zionist Israel’s existence in the Middle East. These were the fundamental goals of the “Greater Middle East” (GME) project. When Erdoğan won the election in 2002, he appointed himself co-chair of the GME.

During this period, the AKP-Gülen alliance was the most effective force driving neoliberal transformation both “at home” and “abroad.” The Turkish bourgeois state was restructured on a fascist, political-Islamist foundation, and the “neo-Ottoman” drive for regional expansion was expanded in economic, political, and cultural terms, a process that was also supported by the U.S. and NATO. Erdoğan and the fascist Turkish bourgeois state gained influence among the reactionary Arab states in the region as well as among the Muslim peoples in the Balkans.

The existential crisis of capitalism revealed by the global economic crisis of 2007–2008 not only shook U.S. dominance in the world market but also created the conditions for the weakening of U.S. imperialist hegemony in the Middle East. In light of this, the emerging Sino-Russian axis gained regional influence and expanded it, in particular, by supporting anti-American governments such as the mullah regime in Iran, the Gaddafi regime in Libya, and the Assad regime in Syria.

The crisis facing the Turkish bourgeois state has intensified under these circumstances. Following the coup attempt by the Gülenist generals, the demand for “strategic autonomy” vis-à-vis foreign powers came to the fore. In this vein, the Turkish bourgeois state strengthened its relations with Russia in order to capitalize on inter-imperialist contradictions. While acting in accordance with its regional political and economic interests, and above all with the aim of dismantling the national achievements of the Kurdish people, it also accepted certain tensions with U.S. imperialism.

As imperialist bloc formation, global competition, and regional power constellations in the Middle East intensify, the fascist chief regime’s room for maneuver is narrowing. At the same time, the current situation in the Middle East favors closer coordination and more stable relations between the Turkish bourgeois state and NATO.

Although Erdoğan attempted to act as a mediator at the start of the war in Ukraine, he later declared his support for Ukraine’s accession to NATO. He ultimately had to accept Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO, but at times used the process as leverage in his war against the Kurdish national democratic movement and delayed it accordingly.

Despite the intensification of regional rivalries with Israel, the Turkish bourgeois state was brought into a “peace” committee for the Gaza Strip at the initiative of the U.S. and reached an agreement with Israel as part of the Paris Agreement signed on January 5. In return, Turkey gained greater leeway in its dealings with Rojava. Although the U.S. had at times formed a tactical-military alliance with the SDF in the fight against ISIS, it simultaneously paved the way for attacks by the Turkish state on the Kurdish movement and the Rojava Revolution.

Against this backdrop, the fascist chief regime will attempt to use the summit taking place in Ankara in July as a stage to emphasize the strategic relations between the U.S. and Turkey and to demonstrate its regional influence. Erdoğan himself will seek to present himself as a leading political figure both in the region and beyond.

NATO and Anti-NATO

After the 1950s, the Turkish bourgeois state has acted in the Middle East in accordance with the interests of the U.S. and Western imperialism. As a result, it has drawn the resistance and rejection of large segments of the region’s peoples.

Since the 1960s, revolutionary-democratic mass movements in Turkey, above all the youth movement have been particularly opposed to NATO. These struggles have also succeeded in securing certain political and social concessions. These included, among other things, measures to curb the military’s presence in public spaces, changes to criminal procedure law, the introduction of tax regulations for goods imported from abroad, and restrictions on the use of military bases without Turkey’s consent.

Even today, a consistently anti-NATO movement opposing the financial and economic dependence as well as the military integration of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan can only develop if it closely builds on the revolutionary-democratic mass struggles that have existed since the 1960s. In Turkey and North Kurdistan, where a fascist regime reigns supreme, this ultimately raises the question of an anti-imperialist political revolution, that is, a question of power.

Let us rise up, fight, and triumph against imperialism and its war machine, NATO!

The Soviet Union, the Red Army, the peoples of the Soviet Union, and the workers who emerged victorious from the Second Imperialist World War over the counterrevolutionary front and German fascism dealt a historic defeat to the imperialist-capitalist states. With the victory won by the Soviet Union, the “threat of socialism” became a tangible reality for the capitalist world in every corner of the globe.

Oppressed nations, colonized peoples, workers and laborers, women, and youth rose up against the ruling classes, dictatorships, and imperialists. Revolutionaries, communists, and patriots, who carried the Red Flag with bloodstained hands, captured one stronghold after another from the occupiers, colonial rulers, and imperialists, overthrew their regimes, and wrote new chapters in the struggle for freedom and socialism.

One-third of the world’s population broke away from the capitalist world system and won its freedom. For imperialist capitalism, the hour of its gravedigger had begun. The imperialist monopoly bourgeoisie found itself confronted with a historic nightmare.

Nazi Germany under Hitler, one of the imperialist powers of its time that sought to redivide the world, was brought to its knees by the Soviet Union. France had largely lost its economic and military strength, Britain had suffered severe blows, and Japan had capitulated. Britain and France lost part of their colonial territories to peoples fighting for their independence; other colonies fell under the sphere of influence of the United States. The imperialist United States, on the other hand, unlike Great Britain and France, emerged from both world wars virtually unscathed and began to supplant British imperialism’s leading position.

After the U.S. had risen to become the leading power of the imperialist camp, it declared the Soviet Union its main adversary immediately after the end of the Second Imperialist World War. This marked the beginning of the so-called “Cold War.” In 1947, then-U.S. President Truman announced the Truman Doctrine, named after him. Its core tenet was hostility toward the Soviet Union, socialism, and communism, as well as toward national liberation movements.

U.S. imperialism set itself the goal of encircling the Soviet Union, rolling back the influence of socialism, crushing national liberation struggles, defeating all anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonial movements worldwide, and conquering new markets and colonial spheres of influence. On September 18, 1947, the United States established the CIA as its central organ of counterrevolution.

On the same basis, on April 4, 1949, under the leadership of U.S. imperialism and in collaboration with twelve states, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Luxembourg, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded.

In collaboration with the U.S., NATO, and the CIA, numerous assassinations, massacres, conspiracies, military coups, and wars of occupation were organized. Anti-communist organizations, torture centers, and counterrevolutionary secret armies were established. Under the name “Gladio,” a network of such counterrevolutionary structures emerged in every NATO member state.

With the help of these counter-guerrilla structures, revolutionaries, communists, artists, trade unionists, scientists, intellectuals, and anti-imperialists were declared enemies. In the course of outright “witch hunts,” thousands of people were arrested, tortured, and murdered.

Since its founding, NATO has functioned as the planner, organizer, executor, and overseer of the most brutal policies of oppression against the working peoples of the world. It is the driving force behind torture, massacres, military dictatorships, and numerous other counterrevolutionary operations, and remains to this day one of imperialism’s most important and reliable institutions.

No other imperialist institution is as closely associated in people’s minds with death, bloodshed, and massacres as NATO. Wherever its name is mentioned, it has paved the way for the imperialist monopolies. In other words: It has brought war, oppression, and bloodshed to working people. Even today, it continues to turn more and more regions of the world into battlefields.

Workers and the oppressed and exploited peoples of the world!

NATO is the counterrevolutionary war machine of the imperialist-capitalist order. It was an enemy of the peoples yesterday and remains so to this day. As the military center of the imperialist camp led by U.S. imperialism, it continues to transform the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Europe into bloody battlefields in the interests of the imperialist monopolies. Around the world, it wages wars marked by massacres and directed against centers of resistance.

The genocidal war that Zionist Israel has waged in Palestine/Gaza and Lebanon since October 7, 2023, has been sustained by NATO. All NATO member states, including Turkey, bear shared responsibility for the crimes committed by Israel. The Turkish bourgeoisie, under the leadership of the AKP-MHP, has also made itself an accomplice to the crimes in Gaza and Lebanon through its economic ties to Israel.

Waging a revolutionary struggle against NATO means fighting against the presence of imperialism in Turkey, Kurdistan, and the Middle East.

On July 7 and 8, 2026, the NATO summit will once again take place in Turkey. Once again, NATO representatives are gathering to make decisions that will bring bloodshed, war, and oppression to the peoples of the world, as well as to workers and employees. They are gathering in Turkey to expose the oppressed peoples of the world to the dangers of a new world war.

Let us hold high the banner of the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-chauvinist, and anti-patriarchal struggle that we have inherited from Deniz, Mahir, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, and Mazlum Doğan and their comrades, in order to thwart the policies of the imperialists and their henchmen and block NATO troops’ path to Ankara.

Just as the revolutionary forces used all means and forms of struggle in 2004 to block the NATO summit, let us also mobilize all means and forms of struggle today to intensify the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle.

We call on all workers and all oppressed peoples to join the struggle for freedom and socialism against NATO, the reactionary and imperialist war machine!

Down with imperialism and its war machine, NATO!

Down with NATO, the enemy of workers, laborers, and the peoples!

Long live the united, organized struggle for the freedom of the peoples!

Forward to smash the NATO apparatus in Turkey!

DKP/Birlik, DKP/BÖG, MKP, MLKP, TKEP/L, TKP-ML

June 2026

Long live the uprising for dignity and freedom against heterosexism, hate violence, and the sexist capitalist system!

Statement

Year: 2026

No. 7

Across the world, LGBTI+ people are raising a proud and defiant cry for freedom against the sexist and gendered social order, in all the colors of the rainbow. They affirm their right to exist and to live freely in defiance of heterosexism, the ideological pillar that upholds male domination, and declare their determination to fight for a new world and a new society.

The fascist chieftaincy regime has once again put new patriarchal and heterosexist repressive laws on the agenda with its package of measures known as the “12th Justice Package”, laws it has long sought to implement but has repeatedly had to postpone or withdraw in the face of resistance and the struggle waged by women and LGBTI+ people.

The anti-worker and anti-poor policies pursued relentlessly by the fascist chieftaincy regime in the interests of capital have deepened poverty, hunger, the unrestrained exploitation of women's and children's labor, and male violence intensified by these conditions, plunging the bourgeois family, which the regime seeks to reshape in line with its own economic, political, and ideological objectives, into crisis. Rather than addressing the real causes of this crisis, the regime attempts to shift the blame onto LGBTQI+ people. Through this propaganda, it seeks to drag the existence of LGBTI+ people, whose visibility and partial social acceptance have been won through decades of struggle, into an even more virulent cycle of hate speech and hate-driven attacks.

Through measures that further worsen the living conditions of LGBTI+ people and increasingly restrict their freedoms, attempts are being made to deny them their right to exist.

The uprising of dignity by those who refuse to submit to the sexist system and the identities it imposes raises the cry: “Down with hate, long live life!” It is directed against the compulsion to hide out of shame, to deny one’s own existence, and to live isolated from society and cut off from resistance and the struggle against fascism.

Our Party, the MLKP, in fidelity to the memory and legacy of Comrade Ivana, the lesbian fighter, and Comrade Isyan, the trans woman fighter, who attained immortality in the defense of the Rojava Revolution, calls on all LGBTI+ people to organize, resist, and fight in the ranks of the struggle for socialism, for the right to exist, to live freely, and to life itself; to defeat the fascist chieftaincy regime; and to overthrow the class-based, sexist, patriarchal, and heterosexist capitalist order.

It calls on all workers and laboring people, especially women, to stand with and support the dignified resistance of LGBTI+ people.

LGBTQI+ People Are Not Alone, They Are Not Defenseless!

Long Live the Struggle for Socialism Against the Sexist, Heterosexist, Capitalist Order!

Long Live the Revolution! Long Live Socialism!

June 20, 2026

Central Committee of the MLKP

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