US President Joe Biden has called Turkey’s abandonment of an international agreement aimed at preventing violence against women “deeply disappointing.”
In a White House statement posted Sunday, Biden said Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention was “sudden and unwarranted.”
“This is a disheartening step backward for the international movement to end violence against women globally,” Biden said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended Turkey’s participation in the Council of Europe agreement through an overnight decree issued early Saturday. The move was a blow to the country's women’s rights movement, which says domestic violence and femicide are on the rise.
Biden’s statement comes at a time of uncertain Turkish-American relations. He and Erdogan have not spoken on the phone since Biden took office in January.
