Two former U.S. ambassadors to Turkey, Morton Abramowitz and Eric Edelman, released a letter on Tuesday addressed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan while he is in Washington for the Nuclear Security Summit hosted by the White House. They tried to criticize and also advise Erdoğan in their own bizarre way about Turkish domestic politics. Such letters are not appropriate in the eyes of Turkish leaders and just serve to antagonize Turkish people who are already becoming more, rather than less, anti-American.

When I read the letter, I was sitting with a well-known Middle East expert in Washington and he started to laugh once he learned about it. "I love these letters. Whenever someone is angry about something they write a letter and send them to their best friends. This is so funny," he said. He offered to pen another letter with our friends whom we met the other night, but later we changed our minds since it would be as useless as the one written by the former ambassadors.

Edelman has an interesting history with Turkey. Ankara almost declared him a persona non grata when he outspokenly opposed then President Ahmet Necdet Sezer's visit to Syria in 2005. After a media frenzy and some tense exchanges, he was forced to resign and accepted a post at the Pentagon. Since then Edelman has become the leading Erdoğan critic in town.

I know Erdoğan's advisors have read this letter, but they will not change their policies simply because they tend to not to listen to former ambassadors who were almost declared persona non grata and who waged a personal vendetta against a NATO ally. Erdoğan's top aide, İbrahim Kalın, previously reacted to Abramowitz and Edelman's op-ed in The Washington Post in which they called for Erdoğan to resign. "Two former U.S. ambassadors who think they are colonial lords wrote that Erdoğan should resign. The days you could hand orders to Turkey are long gone," Kalın said.

I believe there are some interesting points in the article that refer to the Turkish Constitution. We already know from the ambassadors' op-ed that they do not fact check their claims. They said that Erdoğan's accusations of PKK-linked Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputies committing constitutional crimes are unwarranted. It is clear that the ambassadors do not know much about the Turkish Constitution.

Here is what Article 14 of the Constitution says:

"[As amended on October 3, 2001; Act No. 4709] None of the rights and freedoms embodied in the Constitution shall be exercised in the form of activities aiming to violate the indivisible integrity of the State with its territory and nation, or to endanger the existence of the democratic and secular order of the Republic based on human rights. No provision of this Constitution shall be interpreted in a manner that enables the State or individuals to destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized by the Constitution or to stage an activity with the aim of restricting them more extensively than stated in the Constitution. The sanctions to be applied against those who perpetrate activities contrary to these provisions shall be determined by law."

HDP deputies have violated the Constitution many times by attending funerals of PKK suicide bombers and militants, walking shoulder to shoulder under PKK banners and flags and praising the militants. Police video recorded or caught at least two HDP deputies driving injured militants to hospitals, transporting PKK couriers to their destination or carrying PKK supplies in their private cars. They were able get away with it due to their constitutional immunity.

This is why their criticism of Erdoğan on this front is, in fact, unwarranted.

Ambassadors are also very concerned about the state of press freedom in Turkey. As a journalist, I admire the rights and protection the media in the U.S. is afforded by the First Amendment. However, in the Turkish case, we have a constitution that allows a restriction on media as an effective way to combat groups that are trying to topple the government. Clearly, Turkey's press freedom issues do not stem from one leader, but are rather a structurally based issue and very much about the Turkish Constitution designed after a military coup in 1980.

Let's check Article 28 on press freedoms:

"Anyone who writes any news or articles that threaten the internal or external security of the State or the indivisible integrity of the State with its territory and nation; that tend to incite offence, riot or insurrection, or which refer to classified state secrets or has them printed; and anyone who prints or transmits such news or articles to others for the purposes above, shall be held responsible under the law relevant to these offences."

As you can see, you can hold responsible pretty much any journalist due to the vague wording. Although everyone in Washington is skeptical about the Turkish government's willingness to write a new constitution to remove this bizarre restriction everyone needs the help of the head of the Turkish state, i.e, Erdoğan. Taking Erdoğan down publicly would prove useless. Would engaging with him not be less dramatic and more fruitful?