Bob Menendez: “a few days ago, in front of a townhall in northern Turkey, President Erdogan threatened a missile strike on Athens.…”

“a few days ago, in front of a townhall in northern Turkey, President Erdogan threatened a missile strike on Athens. Greece is afraid of our missile. They say that the Typhoon Missile will hit Athens. Then he addressed the Greek people directly and said: It will, unless you stay calm. This is a NATO member directly threatening to target Athens, a city of 3 million civilians. According to the United Nations, an intentional attack on civilians--an intentional attack on civilians--is a war crime. I come to the floor today to condemn the recent actions of the Turkish President, which are not only disturbing, they are totally unacceptable. For years, Erdogan has pursued repressive, anti- democratic policies at home and abroad, from criminalizing insults of Turkey and freedom of expression, to the suppression of dissent and political opposition figures. Erdogan has jailed and silenced so many pro-democracy and human rights activists that at one point, there were more lawyers and journalists in Turkish jails than anywhere else in the world. His government continues to try to hide the truth about the Armenian genocide, prosecuting writers and historians. In 2008, one of the journalists who wrote about the genocide was assassinated on the streets of Istanbul. As violent as Erdogan's tenure has been at home, his foreign policy has been absolutely awful.…”