OFFICIAL CONFESSION — IN WRITING — ON THE PUBLIC RECORD
METUnic’s official written response to the domain owner confirms that Turkey’s Cyber Security Authority (USOM) issued the order to freeze summitdeclaration.com and ankarasummit.org. This is no longer an allegation. It is a documented admission by the registrar itself. ICANN Ticket #2328375. CİMER Application #2603382909.
Hours after summitdeclaration.com and ankarasummit.org went dark on the opening day of the NATO Ankara Summit, the domain registrar METUnic sent an official written response to the domain owner. The response names the actor: Siber Güvenlik Başkanlığı USOM — Turkey’s National Cyber Incident Response Center. The response confirms the mechanism: clientHold applied at registry level, domain delegation suspended. The response confirms there was no court order, no judicial process, no advance notification to the domain owner. A state authority issued an order. The registrar executed it. Two press platforms disappeared from the global DNS. This is no longer speculation. It is documented.
THE OFFICIAL CONFESSION — METUnic Written Response (July 7, 2026)
“Panelinizde bulunan ankarasummit.org ve summitdeclaration.com alan adlarına ilişkin olarak Siber Güvenlik Başkanlığı USOM biriminden resmi bir bildirim iletilmiştir.“
“Hizmet sağlayıcı olarak tabi olduğumuz mevzuat, yetkili otorite bildirimleri […] çerçevesinde […] alan adlarının delegasyonu durdurularak kayıt sisteminden askıya alınmıştır.“
“Söz konusu işlem, METUnic tarafından resen alınmış bir karar olmayıp, USOM biriminden iletilen bildirim doğrultusunda ve yasal yükümlülüklerimiz kapsamında uygulanmıştır.”
Translation: “An official notification was received from the Cyber Security Authority USOM unit regarding the domain names ankarasummit.org and summitdeclaration.com in your panel. The delegation of the domain names was stopped and suspended from the registry system. This action was not a unilateral decision by METUnic, but was implemented in accordance with the notification from the USOM unit.”
What USOM Is — and Why This Matters
USOM — Ulusal Siber Olaylara Müdahale Merkezi — is Turkey’s National Cyber Incident Response Center, operating under the Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK). Its mandate is to respond to cyber threats against Turkish digital infrastructure. It has the legal authority, under Turkish telecommunications law, to issue orders to registrars requiring domain suspension without a court order — a power that exists in a legal grey zone with respect to international domain governance norms and press freedom standards.
The question is not whether USOM had the technical authority to issue this order under Turkish domestic law. The question is what the order was responding to. summitdeclaration.com and ankarasummit.org are not cybercrime platforms. They are not phishing sites. They are not malware distributors. They are press platforms run by an independent researcher documenting the NATO Ankara Summit — a summit at which Turkey is the host nation, at which the Turkish government spent 11.7 billion lira on logistics, and at which 32 heads of state were affirming democratic values in a signed declaration.
“The people who are supposed to be protecting digital infrastructure — the ones with the authority to freeze domains, block IPs, and silence platforms — used that authority against an independent press outlet on the day their government was hosting a NATO summit. The registrar confirmed it in writing. USOM issued the order. The gate was attacked by the gatekeepers.”
The Pattern Is Now Complete
Jun 18@ankarasummit — SUSPENDED on X. No violation identified.
Jun 29@ankarazirvesi — SUSPENDED on X. No violation identified.
Jul 02@SummitDeclares — PERMANENTLY BANNED on X. No violation identified.
Jul 03IP 147.93.90.85 — NULL-ROUTED by Turkish ISPs.
Jul 05T24 editor Buse Söğütlü + Odatv editor Ceren Erdoğdu — arrested at dawn.
Jul 07USOM orders clientHold. summitdeclaration.com + ankarasummit.org: DEAD globally.
Jul 07METUnic confirms USOM order in writing.
Jul 07ICANN Ticket #2328375 filed. CİMER #2603382909 filed to the Presidency.
Jul 07Platform rebuilt. ankarasummit.com mirror active. Still here.
An Open Letter to the President of the United States
OPEN LETTER — FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION
Mr. President,
In an era where the United States champions a free, open, and secure global internet, a dangerous precedent is being set within the core infrastructure of the Domain Name System (DNS). Critical international oversight and independent media assets — ankarasummit.org and summitdeclaration.com — have been abruptly erased from the global DNS root directory through arbitrary administrative mandates from domestic state ministries, bypassing due process, judicial review, and international norms.
This is not standard regional IP filtering. This is a structural assault on the registry and root delegation layer. By enforcing arbitrary backend locks, local state-influenced registries are effectively weaponizing the core protocols of global internet governance to disappear legally registered digital properties from the global web.
When sovereign states exploit technical registry control to seize or freeze global TLDs without judicial oversight, it shatters the foundation of universal internet trust. If left unchecked, this mechanism transforms the internet’s core routing directory into an instrument of geopolitical suppression, threatening the infrastructure security that the global digital economy relies upon.
Mr. President, digital property rights and the integrity of the open internet require robust systemic defense. We urge the United States, alongside global oversight authorities like ICANN, to investigate these structural registry abuses, enforce strict compliance with universal domain governance standards, and protect independent digital ecosystems from root-level weaponization.
This is not a hypothetical threat. It happened. On July 7, 2026 — the opening day of the NATO Ankara Summit — Turkey’s Cyber Security Authority USOM ordered the suspension of two independent press domains. The registrar confirmed this in writing. The WHOIS record shows clientHold. The DNS shows NXDOMAIN globally. The platform operator filed ICANN Ticket #2328375 and CİMER Application #2603382909 to the Turkish Presidency on the same day.
The people responsible for protecting digital infrastructure used their authority to silence independent press on the day their government was hosting NATO. If this is acceptable within the NATO alliance framework, the “democratic values” language in the Ankara Declaration is not worth the paper it will be signed on.
Respectfully,
Mesut Yücel
Independent Researcher & Digital Rights Advocate
ICANN Case File: #2328375 | CİMER: #2603382909
natosummit.org | ankarasummit.com | summitdeclaration.com
We Are Still Here
They suspended three accounts. They null-routed the IP. They applied clientHold via USOM. They blocked every operation at the registrar level. They did all of this while their government was signing a declaration affirming democratic values and press freedom at the NATO Ankara Summit.
We rebuilt in hours. The mirror is active at ankarasummit.com. The record is public. The ICANN complaint is filed. The Presidency has been notified. The registrar’s written confession is in our possession. Every journalist, diplomat, and official who attended this summit now has access to this documentation.
The responsible parties thought they could make this platform disappear. They were wrong. The gate is still held.