Protect Against Conflict By Turkey Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4695, the Protect Against Conflict by Turkey Act.

The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi this past weekend is a major win in our counter-ISIS campaign, and I congratulate our brave special operators for a job well done, the men and women of our intelligence community, and our President for a bold decision.

The world is better off without this sick and deranged leader of the so-called caliphate. Baghdadi still has thousands of followers committed to terrorism. While their leader's death is a huge blow, we must stay vigilant to keep them from reconstituting or carrying out attacks in the West and to our homeland.

With that, we cannot allow Turkey's invasion to hinder, in any way, our counter-ISIS campaign.

My friend, Chairman Eliot Engel, and I coauthored this legislation to give the White House additional congressional support to sanction Turkey for its recent actions and the leverage to ensure Turkey upholds the vital cease-fire negotiated by Vice President Pence.

In the President's own words: ``Should Turkey fail to honor its obligations, including the protection of religious and ethnic minorities . . . we reserve the right to reimpose crippling sanctions.''

In addition, our bill ensures there are Presidential waivers to provide flexibility for the administration on how almost all the sanctions are administered.

This bill incentivizes Turkey to comply with the cease-fire. If they do not, there will be consequences in the form of crippling sanctions.

Turkey is also a vital NATO partner, and I am hopeful they will cease their destabilizing actions and act as a responsible partner.

With that in mind, let's recap how we got here today.

On October 9, Erdogan's forces charged across the border, unleashing a potential humanitarian crisis for the people in northern Syria. The assault has expanded Assad and Putin's grip on Syrian territory.

As I said 2 weeks ago, I am concerned this incursion will damage U.S. interests in the Middle East and the Syrian people, including the Kurds, our ally. The only beneficiaries of more violence and more chaos in Syria are America's adversaries, and that is Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Iran, and terror groups like ISIS.

On October 17, the administration brokered a cease-fire with Turkey, which has held to date. This has helped to stabilize the situation and prevent a worst-case scenario from taking place. I applaud the Vice President and Secretary Pompeo for that delicate negotiation with President Erdogan, and I believe that our bipartisan resolution, which disapproved of the Turkish incursion last week, I believe, helped in these negotiations.

Our bill today--my bill with Mr. Engel--codifies the administration's agreement in Ankara and will help to strengthen the President's hand in ensuring that Turkey upholds its commitments.

Our bill imposes penalties on Turkey if it continues its offensive in northern Syria. Specifically, it sanctions Turkish officials involved in the military operation in Syria. It blocks U.S. weapons sales to Turkey that could be used in Syria and sanctions foreign entities selling such weapons to Turkey. It sanctions banks supporting Turkey's defense sector in the Syria campaign.

Our bill also requires the administration to develop plans to adjust our counterterrorism strategy to respond to the changing situation on the ground.

I am pleased that the administration heard our call for a residual force in Syria. I can think of nothing more dangerous than withdrawing all of our troops in Syria, as we saw when we withdrew, under the previous administration, from Iraq to 10,000 forces. That is when we saw the rise of ISIS and the so-called caliphate.

We will have a residual force in Syria working with the SDF and the Kurds to help defeat and make sure ISIS is never again a threat to the homeland.

Finally, it identifies Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 system as a transaction subject to sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA. That is very important. How can you be a NATO ally and purchase Russian military equipment?

We let Turkey into NATO to protect them from the Soviet Union, and now our NATO ally is buying Russian military equipment and, through its invasion into Syria, threatening our allies.

For these reasons, I urge support of this bill and thank Chairman Engel for, once again, coming to a bipartisan resolution. When, once again, they said it couldn't be done, we got it done, and I thank him for that.

I want to echo Madam Speaker's comments. When we stand united on the floor of the Congress, as Americans, that is when we send the strongest message overseas to adversaries.

I want to thank Mr. Engel for his strong work in working with me to get to a positive place where we can actually get to a solution to what has been a challenging and very fluid situation. It is always an honor to work with the gentleman on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

In these times of crises we are, I believe, strongest on the world stage when the executive and legislative branch speak in one voice.

In his testimony before our committee, Ambassador Jeffrey, the Special Envoy to Syria said:

I saw firsthand the effect of congressional sanctions when we visited with the Turkish negotiating team; that these sanctions have been helpful in getting the Turks to agree to the cease-fire.

And I believe the resolution that we passed helped get Turkey to the cease-fire as well.

Finally, I want to thank our partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces for their ongoing dedication to countering ISIS. And I want to say to the SDF, from the Nation's Capitol, on the House floor, that the American people are grateful for everything you have done for us, for everything you have worked for, and everything you have sacrificed to keep the world safer.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this important legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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