Turkey, the TRT, and FARA Violations: State Broadcaster Faces Legal Scrutiny

Con­cerns have emerged over FARA vio­la­tions by Turkey’s state broad­cast­er, TRT, regard­ing poten­tial­ly false dis­clo­sures to US author­i­ties. On June 5, 2025, Nordic Mon­i­tor report­ed that Turkey’s state-run broad­cast­er TRT may have vio­lat­ed US for­eign agent laws by deny­ing polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in manda­to­ry fil­ings despite exten­sive evi­dence of pro­mot­ing Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan’s for­eign pol­i­cy objec­tives, includ­ing pro-Hamas mes­sag­ing, to Amer­i­can audi­ences. The arti­cle begins:

Turkey’s state-run broad­cast­er, Türkiye Radyo Tele­vizy­on Kuru­mu (TRT), wide­ly regard­ed as the pri­ma­ry pro­pa­gan­da arm of the rul­ing Islamist Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty (AKP), may have sub­mit­ted false infor­ma­tion in its lat­est manda­to­ry dis­clo­sure under the US For­eign Agents Reg­is­tra­tion Act (FARA). This mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion could expose the orga­ni­za­tion’s Wash­ing­ton, D.C., direc­tor, Enes Adli, to seri­ous legal con­se­quences, includ­ing fines and poten­tial imprisonment.

Read more: https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/06/turkeys-state-broadcaster-trt-may-have-violated-us-foreign-agent-law/

Key Points

• TRT denied engag­ing in polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in May 2025 FARA fil­ing despite con­sis­tent­ly pro­mot­ing Turk­ish gov­ern­ment view­points and pro-Hamas mes­sag­ing to glob­al audiences.
• The broad­cast­er spends over $1 mil­lion annu­al­ly on US oper­a­tions, with Wash­ing­ton direc­tor Enes Adli earn­ing $135,000 year­ly, well above aver­age jour­nal­ist salaries.
• TRT paid $50,000 to law firm Saltz­man & Evinch, which also rep­re­sents the Turk­ish Embassy and has been linked to intel­li­gence gath­er­ing on Erdo­gan critics.
• False FARA state­ments con­sti­tute crim­i­nal offens­es pun­ish­able by up to five years impris­on­ment and $250,000 fines per count for individuals.

Turkey, TRT, and Influence Operations: State Media as a Tool of Soft Power

Turkey’s state broad­cast­er TRT has become a cen­tral pil­lar in the country’s influ­ence oper­a­tions, expand­ing its inter­na­tion­al reach through projects like a “Net­flix-like” dig­i­tal plat­form and main­tain­ing a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence in key glob­al mar­kets. Despite claims of edi­to­r­i­al inde­pen­dence, TRT’s US branch mis­rep­re­sent­ed its auton­o­my while remain­ing close­ly aligned with the Erdoğan gov­ern­ment both finan­cial­ly and edi­to­ri­al­ly, as reflect­ed in its mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar bud­get.

Inter­na­tion­al observers and reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies have repeat­ed­ly chal­lenged TRT’s asser­tions of inde­pen­dence, with the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice requir­ing its reg­is­tra­tion as a for­eign agent and crit­ics high­light­ing its role as a vehi­cle for Ankara’s for­eign pol­i­cy mes­sag­ing, includ­ing sym­pa­thet­ic cov­er­age of groups like Hamas and the ampli­fi­ca­tion of anti-West­ern and anti-India nar­ra­tives. Aca­d­e­m­ic and media analy­ses con­firm that TRT’s edi­to­r­i­al line is shaped by state pri­or­i­ties, espe­cial­ly after the 2016 coup attempt, when gov­ern­ment con­trol inten­si­fied and the broadcaster’s func­tion as a tool of Turk­ish pub­lic diplo­ma­cy became more pro­nounced. These devel­op­ments illus­trate how TRT lever­ages state media infra­struc­ture to shape per­cep­tions, influ­ence dias­po­ras, and advance Turkey’s strate­gic inter­ests on the glob­al stage.

Exter­nal References:

1. TRT Glob­al — Wikipedia

2. Where news could not inspire change: TRT World as a par­ty broadcaster

3. TRT World — Bias and Cred­i­bil­i­ty — Media Bias/Fact Check

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.