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