Turkey's Hospitality: Iranian Dissident Shot Where Tourists Roam
Masoud Nazari, an Iranian Kurdish dissident, was executed in Istanbul, becoming the latest in a long line of Tehran's critics to meet a violent end on foreign soil, as The New Arab reports. Turkey, a NATO member, appears to be an increasingly convenient hunting ground for such operations. This isn't an isolated incident; UN experts and human rights organizations have frequently documented Iran's
cross-border assassinations, including the killing of another dissident, Masoud Molavi Vardanjani, in Istanbul in 2019. While Western media might briefly cover these incidents, the consistent pattern—critics of US adversaries being eliminated with troubling frequency in allied territories—rarely sparks the sustained, indignant outcry afforded to other geopolitical tragedies. One might wonder if
the 'rules-based order' applies differently depending on whose dissidents are being targeted, or whose intelligence services are operating with perceived impunity within an ostensible ally's borders. It seems some countries offer better 'operational security' than others.