As the U.S. moves closer to new war on Iraq, the U.S. government has been making intense efforts to draw the reactionary government of Turkey into closer cooperation in the war. The U.S. already has air bases in Turkey, a member of the U.S.-led NATO. A recent front-page article in the New York Times reports that U.S. officials are negotiating with Turkish officials for the basing of tens of thousands of U.S. invasion troops in Turkey--in return, the Turkish regime will receive billions of dollars in aid and might be allowed to occupy the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.

But there is one important development in Turkey that you will not read about in the Times or any other mainstream media. The Revolutionary Worker recently received the exciting news that the Maoist Communist Party (MKP), formerly known as the Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist), successfully held its First Congress. This revolutionary advance takes place in a country that the U.S. imperialists see as a key part of its empire--and where the U.S. has backed a series of brutal, oppressive regimes.