Version imprimableA week before the annual summit of the terrorist organization of world capitalism, the regime of Turkish president Erdogan had, in order to welcome its “friend” Trump properly, reduced mobility in the capital to a strict minimum and carried out several hundred arrests, through dozens of raids, including against revolutionary parties and groups.
The anti-imperialist conference organised by the No To NATO initiative took place in an atmosphere of a state of emergency. Almost all foreign delegations that came to participate in the conference were detained for several hours at the airport and interrogated by the police about the reason for their stay in Türkiye. Following calls made by the deputies of the Workers’ Party of Türkiye (TIP) to the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, many participants were released. However, delegations from Italy, Finland and Germany were sent back to their countries, by virtue of a joint decision of the governments concerned.
The counter-summit was held with the participation of several delegations from Greece, Belgium, Lebanon, Britain, the Czech Republic, Germany, the United States, Sweden, Italy and Serbia. The Fourth International was represented by Gippo Mukendi Ngandu. OKDE-Spartakos, part of the Greek section of the International, also took part in the conference. Unfortunately, the MES-PSOL participant from Brazil was unable to fly for visa reasons. Various international Trotskyist currents such as the CWI, ICL and ITU-CI also sent delegations.
The limits of the conference
While the conference was an opportunity to protest against NATO’s coming together and its militarist policies and to display an intransigent will to fight imperialism, and in particular its predatory aims in West Asia, it is important to underline some limitations.
First of all, the conference was organised by the No to NATO initiative, which was itself founded by the leadership of the TİP and members of this party. It was therefore not a broad and plural initiative, even if some sympathetic revolutionary organisations were asked to take part, without concrete results. However, there was no open appeal to the various currents of the radical left, trade unions and so on. The main reason lies in the desire to avoid endless debates due to the sectarian, identitarian and competitive reflexes of a large part of the Turkish left – which is of course not a local specificity and extends widely to the international level, as we have been able to experience on many occasions. This would most likely have blocked the organisational process and made it almost impossible to hold the conference. The anti-NATO demonstration that took place the next day could only be organized with great difficulty because of the problems mentioned above. It should be added that, in this demonstration of just over 2,000 people, in which almost the entire spectrum of the revolutionary left participated, half of the demonstrators were members of the TİP, especially its youth.
Another weakness, which was also often observed in meetings of this type, was that there were no real debates or interactions between the participants, with each speaker essentially setting out the positions of his or her organisation.
An anti-imperialist statement with ambiguities
As for the final declaration, it seems to us to be generally satisfactory, given the political and conjunctural framework in which the anti-NATO counter-summit was held. The text thus focuses specifically on Western imperialism and its armed wing, condemned from an internationalist, anti-capitalist, feminist and ecological point of view. However, the place given to the relations of the Turkish state with NATO and to the tradition of struggle against it among the revolutionaries of this country may seem disproportionate for an international declaration. While the position of Russia and China within the imperialist hierarchy is not explicitly mentioned, the text nevertheless clearly mentions the invasion of Ukraine, the existence of different imperialist blocs as well as the opposition to any form of occupation, and Russian aggression was criticized in some interventions. Moreover, it should also be pointed out that, in a country where various versions of campism are dominant within the left, the TİP has condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and supported the popular uprising in Iran.
The anti-NATO priority
However, it is important to keep in mind that the objective was precisely to organize in response to a NATO summit, in the context of military offensives carried out by US imperialism in West Asia, with the aggression against Iran and the continuation of the genocide against the Palestinian people. It is therefore natural that the text mainly targets NATO.
It is of course necessary to wage an ideological struggle against the hegemony of campism. But it is equally important to bear in mind that, for a significant number of countries in the Global South, Western imperialism is the main enemy: a concrete enemy, whose material reality is rooted both in the history of these states and in their present.
This is the case with Türkiye, whose past is marked by massacres and political assassinations perpetrated by NATO-linked counter-guerrilla formations, and where the presence of NATO military bases makes it one of the main points of support for guaranteeing the geopolitical interests of Western imperialism in the region.
Anti-Americanism is a predominant and historically rooted sentiment in large sectors of society, and it is on this terrain that what we call campism is rooted. A campism that cannot be considered only as an ideological and strategic deviation, but which is itself the result of a series of defeats of the international workers’ movement, and in particular that of a perspective of revolutionary socialism from below, self-managing and democratic.
The ideological and strategic struggle to be waged is therefore a long-term one, which we cannot wage by boycotting the various international initiatives where campist reflexes predominate, but by building and fighting side by side.
The text concludes by situating itself “in the political continuity of the Porto Alegre Anti-Fascist Conference, the global anti-militarist webinar and the mobilizations against the G7” that took place this year, announces its support for the anti-fascist conferences planned in Argentina and Puerto Rico and sets itself the task of preparing an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist Conference on the scale of the Balkans. However, this will constitute a major challenge, where, this time, it will be impossible to ignore the Ukrainian question.
4 September 2026
Declaration of the International Anti-Imperialist Peace Summit: A Common Front Against NATO, Imperialism, and War
At a time when NATO, the war machine of Western imperialism, held its summit in Türkiye, we gathered in Istanbul to declare our resolve to expand the anti-imperialist struggle for peace against NATO, imperialism, militarism, and the war-driven order. NATO is not a ‘defensive alliance’ but the chief representative of foreign intervention, military domination, occupations, coups, sanctions, and the arms race. The interests of the people are sacrificed to those of the ruling classes, weapons monopolies, energy corporations, imperialist blocs, and their local accomplices.
This gathering is not merely a protest. It reflects our determination to build a common struggle for peace against the rulers who are trying to preserve their world order by dragging the world into a cycle of endless wars. The militarization and lockdown of Ankara for the NATO Summit, with the city reorganized around security measures and restrictions, showed once again that imperialist gatherings are organized not for the security of peoples, but through their repression. The refusal of entry and deportation of some members of the international delegation who came to attend our summit is a direct attack on international solidarity and on the right of anti-imperialist forces to come together.
The struggle for peace cannot be limited to a call to stop wars. It must confront the order that produces them. Policies of destruction are co-produced by weapons monopolies, finance capital, military bureaucracies, NATO institutions, and collaborative regimes. Just as imperialist powers and capital organize on an international scale, the peoples’ struggle for peace and freedom must also organize on this scale. Anti-imperialism must come to life in the collective rebellion of workers, youth, women, migrants, anti-war activists, socialists, and all progressive forces.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO’s existence did not come to an end. On the contrary, NATO has continuously created new enemies, new areas of intervention, and new pretexts for war. While NATO-led military aggression was justified yesterday under headings such as the ‘communist threat’, then the ‘fight against terrorism’, ‘humanitarian intervention’, ‘stability’ and the like, today all ‘humanitarian’ and ‘democratic’ rhetoric has been left behind, and the threat of imperialist expansion has become more overt. NATO’s ambition for growth has made the world not safer, but more fragile and vulnerable to wars.
The ongoing occupation, blockade, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine show the clearest face of imperialism. Israel’s policy of massacre continues with the support of the US, NATO, and European states. Israel’s impunity stems from this collaboration. Therefore, we must stand in solidarity with Palestine, expose fake friends, and apply pressure on all states that arm Israel. The ongoing aggression in Gaza, Israel’s attacks targeting Lebanon and Iran, the continuing imperialist interventions in Syria, the military tensions stretching from the Red Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, the invasion of Ukraine, and the accelerating armament moves in Europe all show that NATO and imperialist powers are preparing the world for greater wars.
Since joining NATO in 1952, Türkiye has been an important part of the security strategy of imperialism. Through military facilities such as Incirlik Air Base in Adana, the Kürecik Radar Base in Malatya, and NATO’s Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) in İzmir, Türkiye plays a critical role in NATO’s regional operations. These bases have been centres for planning and carrying out military operations, from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan and across West Asia. When a country’s territory is used for military operations, it cannot be considered outside the war, even if it is not directly engaged in armed conflict.
Over the years, especially under the Erdoğan regime, Türkiye has maintained close relations with the US and NATO while also developing a special relationship with Israel behind closed doors. Its military presence in Syria, cross-border operations, and interventions that ignore the will of the peoples of the region reveal the expansionist ambitions of Türkiye’s ruling classes. Türkiye presents itself as a mediator that can negotiate with all countries, but this image hides its collaboration with imperialist powers. Ongoing trade, diplomatic, and military relations with Israel expose the insincerity of its claims of solidarity with the Palestinian people. The military presence in Northern Cyprus, multiplying military bases, its role in the competition over energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean, and interventions in Syria all demonstrate Türkiye’s regional ambitions.
Despite the orientation of the Turkish state and capital, socialists in Türkiye have a strong tradition of resisting both NATO and imperialism. The anti-imperialist movement in Türkiye has long combined opposition to NATO and the call for sovereignty. Today, drawing strength from this history, preventing Türkiye from continuing to play this role in the region and resisting its future actions remain among the main goals of Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries.
The five-percent military spending target imposed on NATO countries means that public resources are transferred to arms monopolies. Likewise, the normalization of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons on the grounds of ‘deterrence’ or ‘national security’ is unacceptable. These weapons do not provide security for any people, but instead pose a threat to all life. The arms race does not only expand aggression in foreign policy. It also deepens authoritarianism at home. The aggressive imperialist rule represented by NATO and its allies, the growing far right in Europe, and the security-driven nationalist regime in Türkiye are all different faces of the same global dark order. This order uses the threat of war as a pretext to strengthen border regimes, xenophobia, the criminalization of opposition, and anti-labour policies.
The same dark order is also escalating attacks on the fought-for rights of women and LGBTQI+ people. Militarism and authoritarianism reinforce the patriarchal family model, seeking to confine women to the burden of care, precarity, and a regime of obedience, and to target women and LGBTQI+ people in order to discipline society around reactionary, nationalist, and patriarchal values. War policies produce occupation and intervention abroad, and repression, patriarchy, and social control at home. As military budgets grow, the rights to education, healthcare, housing, social security, care services, and a dignified life are being seized. The working class is condemned to lower wages, heavier taxes, greater precarity, and deepening poverty. For capital, the war economy means profit. For working people, it means the cost-of-living crisis, unemployment, debt, the loss of social rights, and a futureless existence.
Ecological destruction and militarism are not separate from one another. War machines, military bases, fossil fuel competition, struggles over energy routes, and the arms industry destroy nature, agricultural lands, resources, and living spaces. The future of the peoples cannot be handed over to those who profit from war.
For this reason, opposition to NATO is opposition to military blocs and also a struggle against authoritarianism, racism, nationalism, patriarchy, ecological destruction, poverty, and anti-labour policies. The struggle for peace goes beyond simply calling for an end to war. It is a struggle to defend the people’s right to life, equality, freedom, labour, nature, and a future free from war and exploitation.
These responsibilities, carried over from the summit, are a powerful call for solidarity to build a common front against imperialist war, NATO, the arms race, authoritarianism, imperialist ideologies, patriarchy, racism, ecological destruction, and anti-labour policies. This summit should be noted as the first step to build further collaborations and actions such as regional meetings and demonstrations against imperialism and regional rearmament. Building on the political continuity of the Porto Alegre International Antifascist Conference, the Global Antimilitarist Webinar, the mobilisations against the G7, and the International Anti-Imperialist Peace Conference, we will, in the coming period, strengthen mobilisations against COP31, to be held in Antalya, Türkiye, in November 2026. We will also support the planned Antifascist Conferences in Puerto Rico and Argentina, and set ourselves the task of preparing a Balkan-wide Anti-Imperialist and Antifascist Conference.
As the concrete political ground for this line, our demands are listed below:
– Dissolve NATO, shut down all military bases!
– No to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons!
– Stand with all colonised and occupied people against imperialist powers!
– Support the Palestinian resistance against Zionist genocide! Sever all commercial, diplomatic, and military relations with Israel and impose a weapons embargo!
– Divert military budgets to health, education, and the means for a dignified life!
– Anti-imperialist solidarity and internationalist shoulder-to-shoulder struggle with the earthquake-stricken people of Venezuela; with the Cuban people under blockade and embargo!
– Build solidarity and common struggle against the provocation of Turkish and Greek governments’ militarist policies and nationalist threats!
– From the Balkans to West Asia: uninterrupted and permanent coordination against imperialist aggression and organizing new actions!
– Defend life against the war economy, patriarchal oppression, and ecological destruction!
