The Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu (Socialist Equality Group, SEG), the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, condemns the unprovoked attack on Iran by the Zionist state of Israel, supported by US-NATO imperialism. The SEG calls on workers in Turkey, the Middle East, and around the world to mobilize against this imperialist aggression.
The principled opposition of the SEG, which gives conscious political expression to the mass opposition of workers and youth around the world to imperialist-Zionist aggression, stands in stark contrast to the hypocritical attitude of the pro-imperialist capitalist political establishment in Turkey.
On Tuesday, the Turkish Parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning Israel’s aggressive actions against Iran and in the broader region. This resolution exposes the complicity of Turkey’s capitalist political establishment in these crimes rather than Israel, which is escalating this aggression with US-NATO support.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government, which controls NATO’s second largest army, and the pro-NATO, pro-imperialist bourgeois opposition parties such as his AKP are organically incapable of opposing imperialism, Zionism, and imperialist war. Moreover, they sharply oppose any real opposition to them.
The struggle against aggression toward Iran, the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and imperialist war can only be waged by uniting the international working class against imperialism, Zionism, and the capitalist system. This unification must be based on a revolutionary socialist programme in the Middle East and internationally.
The parliamentary resolution and the Erdoğan government’s response to Israel’s attack on Iran highlight the Turkish ruling class’s contradictory and explosive position in the emerging conflict.
“Israel’s aggression against Iran escalates tensions in the region and brings with it the risk of widespread war,” reads the Turkish parliamentary resolution. It adds: “Israel’s aggression and state terrorism have already condemned Israel and the imperialist powers that support it in the eyes of the people.”
In fact, Israel’s attack on Iran, like its attacks in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, takes place with the full support of the US and European imperialist states. Under fascist President Donald Trump, the US is planning to directly enter the war with Iran on Israel’s side.
These same powers are escalating the war against Russia over Ukraine and preparing for war against China. This is an imperialist war to redivide the world. The goal is to recolonize Iran, Russia, China, and other countries. However, the capitalist regimes of these countries, under pressure from imperialism, have no progressive response. They fear their own working classes and are desperately seeking a deal with the US-led imperialist powers.
Given these circumstances, Turkey’s capitalist parties in the parliament do not address the country’s alignment with US and European imperialism, nor its NATO membership and collaboration with these powers.
Turkey is not a passive accomplice. Oil from Azerbaijan to Israel, which is fueling its war machine, passes through Turkey, and the government profits from this trade. Not only does Turkey continue to trade with Israel, but US-NATO military bases in Turkey also provide Israel with logistical and intelligence support for its genocide and war.
The SEG demands that Turkey leave NATO and sever all relations with Israel. Military bases used for the benefit of the US and Israel must be closed immediately, and the mediation of oil flow from Azerbaijan to Israel must cease.
While condemning the attacks on Iran, the Turkish parliament declares that it expects the “international community”, i.e., the US and its imperialist allies, to “take a firm and principled stance to stop Israel.” This call to the very powers that use Israel as their attack dog underlines the bankruptcy of the bourgeois perspective, whether in service of or targeted by imperialism.
The former applies to the regime in Turkey, and the latter to the Iranian regime. Faced with an impending Israeli attack, the Iranian regime held the false belief that it could reach an agreement with the Trump administration, despite the latter’s previous declarations of intent to destroy Iran. In this sense, the Iranian regime expected the US to “take a firm and principled stand to stop Israel.” It was akin to expecting a “principled stand” from Hitler when the Nazis invaded Europe and the Soviet Union, initiating the Holocaust.
The Turkish ruling class is unable to oppose the growing aggression of US imperialism and its proxy, Israel, in the Middle East. Therefore, it is trying to adapt to developments and preparing for a war with far-reaching consequences. Turkey, which shares a long border with Iran since the seventeenth century, fears being drawn into war if imperialist aggression against its 90-million-population neighbor escalates.
However, the Turkish bourgeoisie has contributed significantly to the vortex of war that has engulfed it today through the policies it has pursued for its reactionary ambitions. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Turkey has supported and been complicit in US imperialist attacks that have devastated the entire region. These include the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the wars of regime change in Libya and Syria from 2011. They all resulted in the deaths of millions, the displacement of tens of millions, and the destruction of the entire social infrastructure. The genocide in Gaza and the war on Iran are only the latest in a series of attacks aimed at creating a “new Middle East” purged of Russian and Chinese influence and under the complete domination of US imperialism.
The Turkish and Iranian ruling elites both fear that an escalation of the war could lead to the secession of their Kurdish regions, and ultimately, the dissolution of their national borders.
Since October 2023, Israel and the United States have attempted to redraw the maps in the Middle East, exacerbating the concerns of Turkey’s ruling elite, who are incapable of solving its own Kurdish question. Israel’s designation of the US-backed Kurdish forces as “natural allies” in Syria, a country undergoing regime change, has escalated the rivalry between Ankara and Tel Aviv in Syria, raising the possibility of a military confrontation.
In October, Erdoğan warned of an impending war between Israel and Turkey. He said, “The Israeli leadership, acting with the delirium of the promised land and with a purely religious fanaticism, will set its sights on our homeland after Palestine and Lebanon.”
On January 6 , the Nagel Commission’s report, presented to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stated, “Turkey has become the most influential power in Damascus and that the Sunni-Turkish axis has replaced Iran’s Shiite axis.”
Having spoken by phone with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian after the Israeli attack and calling for the US and Iran to return to negotiations, Erdoğan’s statement on X/Twitter on Monday echoed these concerns: “It should not be forgotten that no country in this region is confined to its borders and administration. Attacking the Palestinian people and their land is not a phenomenon limited to the few million people living there. Similarly, attacks on Iranian territory and its people concern more than just the Iranian state. When it comes to Turkey, it is possible to talk about a power of influence that transcends continents.”
The escalating war in the Middle East has strengthened the possibility that Kurdish forces in Syria and Turkey will gain a kind of status by cooperating with the US and Israel. This has led Ankara to a deal with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it has fought for 40 years, on disarmament and dissolution of the organization.
In October, Erdoğan revealed that the main reason behind the attempt to negotiate with the PKK was the US efforts to reorganize the Middle East through Israel. He said: “As the maps are being redrawn in blood and the war Israel has waged in Gaza is spreading to Lebanon and approaching our borders, we are trying to strengthen our internal front.”
Although the PKK announced its decision to disarm and dissolve at a May congress, its sister parties in Syria and Iran have a de facto alliance with the US and Israel, and they continue to use their armed forces to protect and strengthen their positions. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) controls northeastern Syria alongside US forces. The SDF’s backbone is the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the PKK’s sister organization in Syria.
On Saturday, June 14, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the sister organization of the PKK in Iran, issued a statement on its X/Twitter account. While not openly condemning the US-backed Israeli attack on Iran, PJAK stated that the target was “implementing the ‘New Middle East’ project” and claimed that the war on Iran was “a consequence of the Islamic Republic’s policies of execution, repression, discrimination, corruption, impoverishment, and desperation,” as well as “a result of the Islamic Republic’s expansionist and warmongering policies...”
The Kurdish parties’ position in the imperialist war of redivision and recolonization in the Middle East is reactionary in every respect, whether they seek a deal with Ankara or Tel Aviv. It testifies to the bankruptcy of bourgeois nationalism.
While the imperialist powers and their bourgeois and petty-bourgeois proxies are following the path of war in the Middle East and elsewhere, Leon Trotsky, the founder of the Fourth International, explained that the way to a revolutionary solution is to follow the path of class struggle. There is growing anger and opposition among the workers and youth globally against the representatives of imperialism and its allies.
Almost simultaneously with the imperialist-Zionist attack on Iran, millions of people across the US took to the streets against the Trump administration’s efforts to establish a presidential dictatorship. This follows mass protests in Turkey in March against the Erdogan government’s police state repression. Earlier this month, dockworkers in Marseille, France, refused to load cargo bound for Israel.
The escalating catastrophe of war in the Middle East is a product of the imperialist nation-state system, and it can only end with its demise. In this struggle against imperialism, the allies of the Middle Eastern workers are the US, European, and international working classes, not the bourgeois nationalist regimes and movements that are part of the capitalist system and whose programs are bankrupt. Our slogan and goal in the fight against imperialist war and genocide is the Socialist Federation of the Middle East. The Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu and its sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) are fighting for this perspective.