The 1982 Foreign Missions Act sought to address the concern that state sponsors of terror or other hostile countries might use their embassies and consulates, as well as their diplomatic privileges, to coordinate terrorism and espionage against U.S. citizens. Such concern was not simply paranoia: The Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies ran espionage networks from their missions. President Jimmy Carter, meanwhile, did not break U.S. relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran when it seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding fifty-two diplomats for 444 days; he broke relations in April 1980 after the Iranian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., coordinated a hit against a dissident living in nearby Bethesda, Maryland.
Today, nine countries remain in the Foreign Missions Travel Controls Program: Belarus, the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela. It may be telling that, despite President Donald Trump’s public embrace of Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former wanted terrorist, the State Department does not trust him and his appointees enough to roam the United States.
Perhaps it is now time to add Turkey to the list.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan once sought to project a moderate face; any pretense about his true agenda is now gone.
Erdoğan dehumanizes Jews and encourages antisemitism, in Turkey and abroad.
Erdoğan likens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, and calls Israel a “terror state” that seeks to sow “chaos and instability” in its quest to “Greater Israel.” More broadly, Erdoğan dehumanizes Jews and encourages antisemitism, in Turkey and abroad. With subsidies from those close to Erdoğan’s ruling party, Hitler’s Mein Kampf became a best-seller in Turkey, and Emine Erdoğan, the president’s profligate wife, urged Turks to see a film Erdoğan’s associates financed that depicted Jews as provoking the Iraq war in order to traffic in the organs of dead Muslims.
The problem is not simply his rhetoric, however. Erdoğan has floated the possibility of using the Turkish military against Israel. Perhaps Western officials can shrug this off as bombast, but such statements condition and incite the Turkish public.
He has also welcomed Hamas with open arms. Today, Turkey-based Hamas leaders plan more terror attacks on the Jewish state than Iran-based Hamas attacks. Following the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel, Turkey arguably became more important to Hamas than either Iran or Qatar.
Turkey also has an increasingly long history of targeting and harassing American servicemen—especially U.S. Navy sailors on port visits and shore leave.
Turkey and the quasi-governmental foundations and organizations it sets up in the United States also increasingly spy on and perhaps even target Turkish dissidents on American soil. In 2017, Erdoğan ordered his bodyguards to attack Kurdish and Turkish dissidents in the heart of Washington, D.C.; many bodyguards then used supposed diplomatic immunity to evade accountability. The Sheridan Circle attack shows Turkish officials will not hesitate to use their diplomatic privileges to conduct terror. In 2017, it might have been Kurds, Armenians, and followers of theologian Fethullah Gülen, Erdoğan’s one-time ally-turned-adversary; in 2025, it could be Jews going to synagogue on the High Holy Days or supporters of Israel commemorating the second anniversary of the October 7 pogrom.
For Turkish diplomats, travel within the United States is a privilege, not a right.
Turkey’s supporters often lobby against holding Turkey accountable for its actions by arguing that Turkey is too important as a NATO member to designate as a terror sponsor. However, by applying the Foreign Missions Travel Controls limitations to Turkey—limiting its diplomats to travel within twenty-five miles of the White House and Columbus Circle in New York—Turks could still conduct all necessary business but be far less able to harass or surveil dissidents, Jews, and other Americans. It would also help the FBI pursue its mission to keep Americans safe.
For Turkish diplomats, travel within the United States is a privilege, not a right. And while Trump is partial to Erdoğan, his chief job as commander in chief is to keep Americans safe and secure. It’s time to put Turkish diplomats on a leash.
