Speaker 1: There was an ugly scene after Turkish President Airdwan met
Speaker 1: with U S President Trump last week. Members of Air
Speaker 1: to one security detailed clashed with protesters outside the Turkish
Speaker 1: ambassador's residence in Northwest Washington. Videos show air to Wan's
Speaker 1: men charging the demonstrators, then punching and kicking them. DC's
Speaker 1: chief of police called it a quote brutal tech on
Speaker 1: peaceful protesters. But any effort to hold air to Wan's
Speaker 1: bodyguards accountable is going to have to overcome the hurdle
Speaker 1: of diplomatic community. Is that obstacle an insurmountable. One our
Speaker 1: guest to talk about that is Ruth Wood. Ruth Wedgwood,
Speaker 1: a professor of international law and diplomacy at the Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins School of International Studies. Ruth, thanks for joining us. UM,
Speaker 1: just tell us what is your understanding of what happened
Speaker 1: outside the Turkish ambassadors home. Well, I wasn't there obviously
Speaker 1: in person. I've seen some film clips and what it
Speaker 1: does look like is that the Turkish bodyguards charged various
Speaker 1: of civilians who were demonstrating, which is their first Amendment
Speaker 1: right to in this country, and brutalize them. And I
Speaker 1: frankly found it extraordinarily shocking. I drive by their every
Speaker 1: day on my way to work. It is Sheridan's Center,
Speaker 1: Sheridan Circle, right by the American Society of International Law.
Speaker 1: And I've never seen anything quite like this in recent history,
Speaker 1: because while embassies have immunity for their senior officials, it
Speaker 1: gives them no license to become thugs and the kind
Speaker 1: of a mob attacking people whose views they happen to
Speaker 1: disagree with. So so let's let me jump to sort
Speaker 1: of the bottom line question, and then we can explore
Speaker 1: the nuances of it. Um. If what you described is
Speaker 1: what you know, what you understood, and what I think
Speaker 1: I understand from the videos is what happened. Um. And
Speaker 1: as men are culpable in this, can they be prosecuted?
Speaker 1: Depends on their rank in the embassy. Uh. If they were,
Speaker 1: for example, just contract officials, then yes, indeed. UH. If
Speaker 1: they are have embassy status, we would certainly and we
Speaker 1: should demand that Turkey wave their sovereign immunity or their
Speaker 1: personal immunity. Uh. You can use expulsion, declare them persona
Speaker 1: non grata, and expel anybody of any rank. Frankly, I
Speaker 1: would expel some very senior officials if not the ambassador,
Speaker 1: perhaps the d c M, the Deputy chief of Mission,
Speaker 1: to make the point that you just can't do this.
Speaker 1: This I will note is where the assassination of late
Speaker 1: Tellier a Chilean uh, what was occurred must be one
Speaker 1: three decades ago. But literally this is embassy row. You
Speaker 1: don't use hooliganism in embassy row. It's it's bad for
Speaker 1: the US abroad, it's unseemly for a Turkey. So you
Speaker 1: made a distinction between you talked about contracts and employees
Speaker 1: and and uh embassy personnel. If these are are people
Speaker 1: who came with aired Wan and there may be a
Speaker 1: mixture of people because there were lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of people there. If it's somebody who's on air to
Speaker 1: wanees uh, you know staff in Turkey who travels with
Speaker 1: him and came here, where would that person fall on
Speaker 1: that divide? Well, the lower level you are, the less
Speaker 1: immunity you generally have. Lower level employees will typically have
Speaker 1: official acts community and you can have a nice conversation
Speaker 1: even litigation about whether beating up harmless demonstrators is an
Speaker 1: official act, because surely Turkey is not going to want
Speaker 1: to embrace that as the policy that they desired. So
Speaker 1: what one could ask Turkey to waive in the immunity
Speaker 1: that those people have as well and put them put
Speaker 1: a couple of them in the slammer. This is really
Speaker 1: unacceptable behavior. It's Cold war behavior. It's not the behavior
Speaker 1: of an ally. So Turkey does not seem like they
Speaker 1: are going to to agree to do any of that
Speaker 1: sort of thing at least. You know, what happened today
Speaker 1: was apparently there's a report that they Turkey summoned the
Speaker 1: US and as to protest what Turkey called the aggressive
Speaker 1: and unprofessional actions of US security personnel during the visit.
Speaker 1: What what's your reaction to that? One don't know which
Speaker 1: US personnel they're talking about, other than perhaps policemen. Uh,
Speaker 1: but that just seems to mean be nonsense on stilts.
Speaker 1: Given the film that we have, I take it that
Speaker 1: the First Amendment or freedom of speech, freedom of demonstration
Speaker 1: is not as familiar in parts of Turkey as it
Speaker 1: might wish it to be. But these are sophisticated people
Speaker 1: that these are. These are not just folks that came
Speaker 1: off the boat. They knew what they were doing. I
Speaker 1: think this was an attempt to be forward leaning on
Speaker 1: the part of Turkey and to show that they have
Speaker 1: a certain uh uh prowess in intimidation. I think it
Speaker 1: really is ugly, and so if it reflects what the
Speaker 1: White House might have inadvertently signaled as acceptable behavior, I
Speaker 1: do think that the President should be very careful in
Speaker 1: the future that nobody who's coming here on official visit
Speaker 1: has a a insane belief that they can get away
Speaker 1: with this kind of thing. Let me just back up
Speaker 1: for a second, return to the subject of diplomatic community.
Speaker 1: Where where does that concept come from? It's been embodied
Speaker 1: in treaty language. There's the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,
Speaker 1: which gives immunity absolute immunity, meaning all you can do
Speaker 1: is expel them to very senior people, and then official
Speaker 1: acts immunity to lower level people, and then has a
Speaker 1: third category of kind of drivers and operatives. But it's
Speaker 1: but it's one of the most ancient venerable guarantees and
Speaker 1: traditions in order to make diplomacy possible, because otherwise you'd
Speaker 1: be very leery of going into the mouth of the
Speaker 1: lion for fear of what would happen to you. And
Speaker 1: particularly in the Cold War, it was very, very important
Speaker 1: for our folks in Moscow to have diplomatic community less
Speaker 1: they be put in the gulag or intimidated or or assaulted.
Speaker 1: So if the US takes a really hard line on
Speaker 1: this with with Turkey, to what extent does that have
Speaker 1: the potential to come back and bite our people who
Speaker 1: are American people who are overseas and and maybe are
Speaker 1: accused of doing something by by a foreign government there. Well,
Speaker 1: the absolute nature of diplomatic community is not disputed in
Speaker 1: its in its in it's at its core, I mean it.
Speaker 1: There's there's a Vienna Convention on the matter. Almost all
Speaker 1: states assigned up to it. It existed as customary law
Speaker 1: before any formal treaty instrument was completed. And it's something
Speaker 1: that every country needs. So I think that Turkey would
Speaker 1: only be piling on wood on the fire if it
Speaker 1: attempted to attack the idea itself. They need it, we
Speaker 1: need it, Every country needs it in order to have
Speaker 1: the kinds of conversations that in general tend to solve
Speaker 1: problems and escalation. And what have you heard from the
Speaker 1: Trump administ stration so far with it about thirty seconds left?
Speaker 1: Have they given the type of forceful response that you'd
Speaker 1: like to like to see. I could be unaware sitting
Speaker 1: here in the suburbs, but I do think it's incumbent
Speaker 1: on Donald Trump, who likes to present himself as a
Speaker 1: man of parts and a man who doesn't stand for
Speaker 1: a lot of nonsense, to have a very very evocative, forceful,
Speaker 1: uh damning, if I may response to this, It's not
Speaker 1: acceptable behavior from any country, and certainly not from a
Speaker 1: country with whom we cooperate. I want to thank our guest,
Speaker 1: Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins University, talking to us about
Speaker 1: the prospect of diplomatic community for the bodyguards of Turkish
Speaker 1: President Air Duan who were involved in that fracas in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Last week. Coming up on Bloomberg Bloomberg Radio
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Speaker 1: good afternoon, everybody for getting a new CEO. We've got
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