Two foreign policy analysts told the US Congress on Tuesday that Washington needs to stop tiptoeing around Turkey and of...

Two foreign policy analysts told the US Congress on Tuesday that Washington needs to stop tiptoeing around Turkey and officially call northern Cyprus what it is: occupied territory. The testimony came before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, timed ahead of the NATO summit. Michael Rubin of the Middle East Forum told lawmakers that American "diplomatic evasions" on Cyprus have done nothing to resolve the conflict and have instead rewarded Turkish aggression. He said the 1974 invasion's second phase, Operation Atilla, was a "clear land grab" that continued long after democracy had been restored in Greece, stripping away Ankara's justification for it. Rubin called on Congress to officially refer to the north as "Turkish occupied", close offices representing the Turkish Cypriot administration in the US, recognize Turkish Cypriots only through Republic of Cyprus passports, and strengthen the American military presence on the island. He also flagged Turkey's construction of a drone base at Lefkoniko and the deployment of Turkish fighter aircraft to the north as developments that have shifted the security balance across the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. Sinan Ciddi of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies went further, describing Turkey as "a revisionist force" actively undermining NATO cohesion. He told lawmakers that Turkey has kept tens of thousands of troops, drones, and missile systems in the north since 1974, and that the deployment of six Turkish F-16s to the island in March was a significant escalation. Ciddi also raised the incident in June when Turkish jets harassed a plane carrying the defense ministers of Greece, France, and the Netherlands as they flew to Cyprus for an EU meeting. Ciddi urged Congress to investigate whether US-supplied F-16s being used in occupied territory violates American arms export conditions, maintain CAATSA sanctions on Turkey, and keep Ankara locked out of the F-35 program as long as it holds the Russian S-400 system. He closed by saying Turkey's image as a loyal Western ally "does not correspond to reality" and urged the US to confront Ankara with clarity rather than wishful thinking. #Cyprus #Turkey #NATO