On Wednesday evening I wrote about US Navy officers being assaulted in Turkey and wondered if Americans should avoid visiting the country.

Based on comments, it seems that overall most people that visited Turkey left having had a positive experience. Others seemed to feel that it was not a safe country to visit or would think again about doing so in the future due to potential safety concerns in the future.

Another comment from a Turkish citizen in the US condemned the attackers and tried to explain what may have happened. He said this was an isolated incident and that the officers had bags placed over their heads due to an incident known as the Hood Event which took place over 11 years back.

His explanation didn’t seem to add up until I came across an article (from Fox News) which also mentioned the Hood Event.

I decided to see if any new information was written about the Navy Officers-Turkey incident and came across the article from Fox News called Turkish Nationalist Group Defiant After Attack On US Navy Officers.

It turns out that the people responsible for the attack are members of a group called the Turkish Youth Union (TGB). The group is proud of the attack and did it in support of Palestine and Syria.

12 members of the group “were detained by Turkish police on allegations of injuring, insult and violation of the public demonstration law and released with the possibility of facing charges”. It would’ve been nice to hear that those responsible would be caught and charged not that they might face charges. Kinda weird, since the incident was caught on tape.

I’m not sure if the Turkish government made many statements about the incident but Fox News reported that Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said “We condemn this disrespectful act, which is in no way tolerable”.

It was good to hear Turkey speaking out against the attack on the Navy officers but I still feel that it came off as a pretty weak statement nonetheless.

Last year, the group TGB also harassed German NATO soldiers in Turkey, trying to put bags over their heads too.

So maybe the attack on the US Navy officers a couple of days back by this (according to Fox News) “far-left, anti-government, anti-American revolutionary youth organization“, is more so anti- anything pro-Western.

Do you feel that Turkey’s response to this situation is enough or should they be doing more to punish those responsible?

Find out more details about the situation and the Turkish Youth Union (TGB) here.