Coalition Calls on U.S. to Designate Turkey’s Grey Wolves as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

WASHINGTON, DC – American Friends of Kurdistan (AFK), Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), In Defense of Christians (IDC), Middle East Forum (MEF), and the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) joined together this week to call upon the Department of State to formally designate Turkey’s violently racist Grey Wolves as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar) – aka: Idealist Hearths (Ülkü Ocakları) – currently operate in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and internationally as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), as defined under 8 USC 1189 (Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations), and should be officially designated as such by the Secretary of State.

The Grey Wolves meet the three statutory tests set forth in U.S. law:

A) The organization is a foreign organization;

The organization engages in terrorist activity (as defined in section 1182(a)(3) of this title or terrorism (as defined in section 2656f(d)(2) of title 22), or retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism) 1; and

C) The terrorist activity or terrorism of the organization threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States.

If/when the Grey Wolves group is designated as an FTO, it will become unlawful for any person in the United States or subject to U.S. jurisdiction to knowingly provide them with “material support or resources.” In addition, any Grey Wolves funds identified in the U.S. will be frozen, and members of the Grey Wolves organization denied entry into the United States.

The French government, on November 4, 2020, formally banned the Grey Wolves, citing the organization’s “extremely violent actions.”

Sources:

— State Department: https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/

— Treasury Department: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/aedpa.pdf

— Background: https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/grey-wolves