A group of bipartisan House lawmakers are introducing legislation to redesignate Turkey as a Near Eastern country at the State Department, rather than a European country, as Ankara has moved away from the U.S. and NATO allies.
The group of lawmakers, led by Reps. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., introduced the Turkey Diplomatic Realignment Act, which looks to formally move Turkey’s designation at the U.S. State Department from the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs to the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, reflecting Ankara’s deepening ties with Russia, China, Iran, and Hamas, which are fundamentally at odds with Western security interests.
“Turkey is at a crossroads, but Erdogan has made his choice,” Schneider said in a statement.
“His government harbors Hamas operatives, props up Putin’s war machine, and obstructs NATO unity—while still demanding the privileges of a Western ally. It’s time for American diplomacy to stop pretending that Turkey is still part of Europe,” Rep. Schneider added.
Bilirakis said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly acts contrary to American interests, with dangerous behavior contributing to the instability of the region.
“The time has come for official U.S. foreign policy to more accurately reflect the realities of this hostile regime’s conduct and for Erdogan to be held accountable,” he said in a statement.
The Turkish government took issue with how members of Congress are characterizing its foreign policy and European orientation.
“Türkiye’s European identity is an undeniable historical and geostrategic fact. As a strong member of NATO, the Council of Europe, OSCE and an associate EU member, Türkiye is part and parcel of European institutional framework and universal values that these institutions represent,” an official from the Turkish embassy in Washington told Fox News Digital.
“The government of Turkey has become a headache for U.S. policymakers. If Ankara maintains its current trajectory, that headache will soon become a migraine,” Jonathan Schanzer, Executive Director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe during a hearing on the future trajectory of Turkey between the West and the East.
He told the subcommittee that Turkey behaves too often like an adversary, pursuing malign domestic and foreign policies that fly in the face of U.S. interests. He cited Turkey’s established track record of supporting Middle East terrorist groups and rogue states, including Hamas and other groups.
He also said that Turkey used its NATO platform to undermine American interests. Turkey held Washington hostage by demanding the sale of F-16 fighter jets in exchange for its approval in admitting Sweden and Finland into the alliance.
Erdogan has deepened Turkey’s relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin during the war in Ukraine, purchasing the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system. And while much of the NATO alliance imposed stifling economic sanctions on Russia and looked to move away from energy dependence on Russia, Turkey maintained close trade and energy ties with Russia.
The proposed legislation requires the State Department to reassign Turkey’s diplomatic status within 90 days and submit a five-year congressional review on the consequences of Turkey’s realignment away from Europe.
Endy Zemenides, Executive Director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council and whose organization supports the legislation, told Fox News Digital that he applauds the bipartisan group of legislators for requiring the State Department to deal with Ankara realistically.
“An honest evaluation of the U.S .foreign policy bureaucracy reveals that we have unwittingly granted Turkey a “lobby” within multiple State Department bureaus, the size of which is wholly undeserved by a country that has, at best, become “neither friend nor foe,” Zemenides told Fox News Digital.
