Author: Harut Sassounian

Once again, Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan made empty threats. He boastfully proclaimed that he would expel the ambassadors of 10 Western countries, including the United States, for issuing a declaration urging the release of a Turkish human rights activist. He has been wrongly jailed since 2017 without any conviction.

Here are the twists of Erdogan’s irate words. On October 20, he harshly criticized and threatened to expel 10 foreign ambassadors who made a joint declaration on Oct. 18, urging the Turkish government to release philanthropist Osman Kavala immediately from jail. The 10 countries are: The US, Germany, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. On the fourth anniversary of Kavala’a jailing, the ambassadors encouraged Turkey to find a “just and speedy resolution to his case.” They warned that Kavala’s continued detention “cast a shadow over respect for democracy, the rule of law and transparency in the Turkish judicial system.”

After his initial arrest in 2017, Kavala was acquitted in 2020 of the accusations against him, but was rearrested on new baseless charges. Turkey ignored the 2019 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights calling for the immediate release of Kavala. The European Council warned Turkey that if it does not comply with the European Court’s ruling by Nov. 30, 2021, it could suspend its voting rights or even membership in the Council.

Erdogan lashed back at these ambassadors by saying: “Is it within your boundary to teach such a lesson to Turkey? Who are you? I told our foreign minister that we cannot have the luxury of hosting them in our country.” Erdogan added: “They go to bed, they get up, Kavala, Kavala…. Kavala is the Turkish branch of [George] Soros. Ten ambassadors come to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for him. What kind of rudeness is this? What do you think this place is? This is Turkey, Turkey. This place is not what you think — a tribal state. This is glorious Turkey. You can’t just get up and come to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give instructions. I gave the necessary instructions to our Minister of Foreign Affairs. I told him what to do. I said, ‘you will immediately deal with these 10 ambassadors declaring them persona non grata [an unwelcome person] as soon as possible.’ They will know Turkey. The day they do not know or understand Turkey, they will leave this place.”

After their declaration, the 10 ambassadors were summoned to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Afterwards, the Ministry said that “the ambassadors were warned.”

The real question is: Who the hell Erdogan thinks he is to warn the envoys of these countries? By making such a threat, Erdogan just added another wrinkle to the existing problems with Pres. Joe Biden on the eve of the G20 summit in Rome, where the two leaders are supposed to meet. Contrary to Pres. Donald Trump who went to great lengths to accommodate Erdogan’s wishes, Pres. Biden has taken a much tougher line on Turkey. Not surprisingly, The New York Times reported that “the Biden administration was the driving force behind the letter, in keeping with the president’s policy of publicly calling out states over human rights violations.”

Seven of the 10 countries that had signed the letter are members of NATO, while six of them are European Union members. European Parliament President David Sassoli issued a hard-hitting statement. “The expulsion of ten ambassadors is a sign of the authoritarian drift of the Turkish government. We will not be intimidated. Freedom for Osman Kavala.”

By threatening to expel the 10 ambassadors, Erdogan is engaging in his usual trick of demagogy as his political rating has plummeted risking his reelection in 2023. He prefers to raise his own popularity while damaging Turkey’s reputation around the world. He frequently creates artificial external crises to deflect the public’s attention from the dire internal conditions. Meanwhile, the Turkish economy has hit rock bottom with massive unemployment and poverty. The Turkish Lira has dropped to a record low of almost 10 Liras per dollar from 1.3 Lira per dollar from when Erdogan became Prime Minister in 2003.

Even though Erdogan refuses to heed anyone’s advice, he finally came to his senses, realizing that he cannot go forward with his threatened expulsion. He was caught in the horns of a dilemma. If he reversed his decision and allowed the ambassadors to stay, he would lose face in front of the Turkish public. However, should he have proceeded with his expulsion order, he may have caused irreversible damage to Turkey’s economy and relations with the West.

Erdogan was quoted on Oct. 21 as saying that the 10 ambassadors would not release “bandits, murderers and terrorists” in their own countries. Thus, Erdogan was urging Western countries not to interfere with Turkey’s judicial system. While Erdogan is making such a provocative statement, he himself repeatedly pressured Pres. Trump to quash the investigation of the Turkish Halkbank which is accused of money laundering and conspiracy, helping Iran to evade U.S. sanctions. Erdogan was trying to cover up his own ties to the Halkbank scheme.

Pres. Erdogan’s aides explained to him the catastrophic repercussions of his threatened expulsion of the 10 ambassadors. Naturally, these 10 countries would have retaliated by expelling Turkey’s ambassadors. There were dozens of irate articles in the United States and European countries stating that they were fed up with Turkey’s hostile behavior and illegal actions.

That same message was relayed to Turkey through private diplomatic channels. Finally, a compromise was found to deescalate the crisis. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara tweeted on Oct. 25: “in response to questions regarding the Statement of October 18, the United States notes that it maintains compliance with Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.” Other embassies, including those of Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands, posted similar messages. Germany and France retweeted the U.S. Embassy’s tweet. Article 41 of the Vienna Convention bars ambassadors from interfering in the domestic affairs of host countries.

The Turkish Anadolu news agency gleefully tweeted in response: “The U.S. Embassy in Ankara has given in,” adding that Erdogan welcomed the U.S. tweet. Erdogan announced after a Cabinet meeting on Oct. 25 that the ambassadors had backtracked on their “defamation of our judiciary and our country.”

Whichever U.S. official decided to send the second tweet which was interpreted as “backing down” from condemning Turkey’s violations of human rights, should be immediately fired. How can the U.S. government send one message a few days earlier and then turn around and contradict it? What happened to Pres. Biden’s policy of publicly calling out states over human rights violations? A U.S. State Department spokesman responded by saying that its second tweet was meant to underscore that the U.S. envoy’s actions were in keeping with the Vienna Convention.

Unless the U.S. government keeps its promise to come to the defense of human rights around the world, Erdogan and others will keep on violating with impunity the basic rights of their people. There should be no backing down and no contradictory messages in this regard. It is now up to the European Court of Human Rights to hold Erdogan’s feet to the fire.

The Azeri government does not seem to understand that you can’t always get what you want by bribing and paying politicians. There is a limit to what money can buy. Sometimes, the truth matters more.

This is an important lesson that Azeri leaders have not learned. They have wasted tens of millions of dollars in paying lobbying companies and corrupt politicians.

An example of such useless activity is the Azeri obsession with trying to exploit the controversial incident of the killing of a few hundred Azeris in the town of Khojalu during the 1992 Artsakh War. There are various versions of what exactly took place in Khojalu. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan has gone to great lengths to falsely convince the world that Armenians committed “genocide” in Khojalu!

The usual Azeri approach in the United States and around the world is to bribe politicians to issue proclamations to commemorate the anniversary of the Khojalu killings. Ayaz Mutalibov, the first president of Azerbaijan, told Czech journalist Dana Mazalova in a 1992 interview that his Azeri political opponents exploited this incident to topple him from power. He said that Armenian fighters had urged the Azeri populations of Khojalu to flee through a passage left open, but the Azerbaijani National Front obstructed their exodus.

Azerbaijan’s petrodollars have succeeded in getting 23 U.S. states to commemorate the deaths in Khojalu as a “massacre.” Despite Azerbaijan’s persistent lobbying efforts, none of these states accepted Azerbaijan’s alleged term of “genocide” to describe the deaths of a few hundred Azeris in Khojalu. Azerbaijan also used its deep pockets to obtain the recognition of these killings by the parliaments of eight countries: Azerbaijan (naturally), Peru, Panama, Honduras, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Djibouti and Paraguay. In addition, the Foreign Relations Committees of seven Parliaments: Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico, Colombia, Czech Republic, Sudan and Guatemala commemorated the Khojalu killings.

Azerbaijan used these commemorative resolutions to tarnish Armenia’s reputation and counter the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by over 30 countries and 49 U.S. states.

While sometimes money can get you what you want, it can at other times get you embarrassed when those who had earlier commemorated Khojalu, issue a retraction, apologize and cancel their recognition when they realize that they were duped.

The latest such embarrassing example is what took place in San Diego, the second largest city in California. The Azeri media and the Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles, Nasimi Aghayev, boastfully publicized on October 14 that San Diego Mayor Todd Garcia had issued a proclamation designating Oct. 18, 2021 as “Azerbaijan’s Restoration of Independence Day.”

The proclamation falsely claimed that “Azerbaijan is internationally regarded as a successful model for the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.” Consul General Aghayev reminded everyone that 2021 “marks the 10th anniversary of the Baku-San Diego partnership.” Aghayev also noted that “for the first time since 1991, the Azerbaijani people will celebrate this date as victorious people who restored the territorial integrity of their country.”

However, the Consul General’s excitement lasted just one day. On October 15, the Armenian National Committee – Western Region issued a press release urging the Mayor of San Diego to rescind his proclamation which “whitewashed Azerbaijan’s human rights abuses.” That same day, the Mayor of San Diego rescinded his earlier pro-Azerbaijan proclamation. The Mayor wrote: “It is with regret that I share this proclamation was issued as an oversight and should have been more thoroughly vetted by staff as it did not account for the relationship, history and current events between Azerbaijan and Armenia.” More importantly, he stated: “while the city of San Diego has issued proclamations for Azerbaijan Independence Day and similar occasions in previous administrations, my office will no longer be granting these requests. To that end, I am rescinding this proclamation and the City of San Diego will not recognize it on October 18. Please accept my deepest apologies for this oversight and I appreciate you bringing this issue to my attention.”

That is the end of “the Baku-San Diego partnership.” Not surprisingly, the Consul General of Azerbaijan has turned into a mouse since the Mayor rescinded his proclamation. He has not uttered a single word!

The chain of rescinded pro-Azerbaijan proclamations does not end with San Diego. On February 26, 2021, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh issued a proclamation to commemorate “Khojali Day.” However, on March 10, 2021, the Mayor reversed himself and wrote: “I would like to extend my apologies to the Armenian-American community…. Following conversations with leaders of the Armenian-American community, we realize that this proclamation has been hurtful to many of you…. I have decided to rescind this proclamation.” Mayor Walsh, now US Secretary of Labor, included high praise for the local Armenian community and made a reference to the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. What started as an Azeri propaganda effort, ended up as a great public relations victory for Armenia and Armenians.

The same scenario repeated itself in Portland, Maine. Mayor Kathleen Snyder initially issued a proclamation on February 17, 2021 to commemorate “Khojaly Remembrance Day.” However, on April 1, 2021, the Mayor wrote: “I have decided to rescind the Mayoral Proclamation.” She added: “I once again apologize for the pain and harm that the issuance of this proclamation has caused….”

Similarly, the city of Torrance, California, issued a proclamation on October 15, 2021 to celebrate “Azerbaijan Day.” It is a carbon copy of the proclamation issued by San Diego. Later that day, Torrance Mayor Patrick Furey stated that the city “issued a proclamation in error. On past occasions, the City has proclaimed Azerbaijan National Day in the City of Torrance on the effective date. In light of recent events in the associated region, the City has respectfully requested that the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles remove the proclamation from all media.” Nevertheless, the rescinded proclamations of San Diego and Torrance are still on Consul General Aghayev’s Facebook page.

This is yet another example of the failed propaganda efforts of the Consul General of Azerbaijan. Armenians in California are fortunate that Azerbaijan has sent such an incompetent Consul General to Los Angeles. No one should be surprised if he is recalled shortly back to Baku.

There are many other examples of failed Azeri propaganda attempts. On February 25, 2021, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued a proclamation on “Azerbaijani Day,” but refused to include a reference to “Khojaly.” Nevertheless, the Azeri media falsely reported that the Governor had signed a proclamation to commemorate “the Khojaly Genocide.”

Rather than trying to undo the proclamations that are falsely issued at the urging of Azerbaijan’s lobbyists, the Armenian-American community should take preemptive steps so that false pro-Azerbaijan declarations never see the light of day in the first place.

The Hoya, the student newspaper of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, published last week a lengthy investigative article about the demise of the Institute of Turkish Studies, established by the Turkish government. Interestingly, a note at the bottom of the article stated that it was written by Liam Scott and another staff writer who “requested anonymity due to safety concerns in Turkey.”

Even though the Institute was established to paint a positive picture of Turkey in the United States, it ended up antagonizing its own American board members when the Turkish government decided to shut it down.

In 1982, the government of Turkey founded the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) at Georgetown University with an endowment of $3 million. The purpose was to give Turkey a respectable image in the United States by recruiting and funding American academics who would do research on Turkish topics. Throughout its existence, the ITS spent around $350,000 a year to give “grants, scholarships, subventions, and seed money” to 400 scholars in 19 universities to publish books and journals in order to promote Turkish studies. The ITS stated that it played “a key role in furthering knowledge and understanding of a key NATO ally of the United States, the Republic of Turkey.”

Not surprisingly, the ITS had appointed as its Honorary Chairman of the board of governors Turkey’s Ambassador to the U.S. to oversee its activities and funding decisions. The board consisted of prominent former State Department officials and well-known American scholars in Ottoman and modern Turkish studies. The first Executive Director of the ITS was Heath Lowry, a denialist of the Armenian Genocide.

I got involved in a legal dispute with the ITS in 1985 after I wrote an editorial in the California Courier titled, “How the Turks Use Our Tax Dollars Against Us.” I pointed out that many of the scholars who had received grants from the ITS were the same ones who had signed a statement denying the Armenian Genocide. The statement was published as a paid ad in The Washington Post and The New York Times on May 19, 1985. Lowry was involved in drafting this statement and collecting signatures for it. In my article, I reported that 20 of the 69 signatories of the statement had received tens of thousands of dollars from the ITS. Lowry’s role in this ad was a violation of the tax-exempt status of the ITS which was legally prohibited from political lobbying at a time when the U.S. Congress was considering adopting a resolution on the Armenian Genocide. The ITS also contradicted its own statement that it “does not seek to influence legislation nor advocate particular policies or agendas.”

Even though I had obtained the amounts received by the scholars who had signed this denialist statement from an ITS brochure, the ITS sent a letter threatening my newspaper with a major lawsuit, unless I published a lengthy retraction, which I refused to do. The ITS dropped the lawsuit.

The Hoya article provided extensive details about the collapse of the ITS, a Turkish propaganda project disguised as an academic endeavor. The Institute was closed down in September 2020 because some of the independent-minded scholars on its board had refused to go along with the directives of the Turkish government.

The Hoya wrote that “according to former ITS Executive Director Sinan Ciddi and former ITS board members Walter Denny and Steven Cook, Turkey’s decision to defund the ITS came amid rising government pressure to blindly support and loyally promote Erdogan. The ITS was caught in the line of fire of government repression that has characterized Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic Turkey, they said.”

Ciddi, a Georgetown professor of Turkish studies, told The Hoya that the ITS was initially a separate entity from Georgetown University. Later on, the University “provided the ITS with office space and administrative assistance, but the university did not have a say in the Institute’s operations. Georgetown also supplemented the salary of the Institute’s executive director after the ITS lost funding from the Turkish government.” Prof. Jenny White, who served on the ITS board for nearly 20 years, told The Hoya that the ITS was “the best advertisement that there could have been for Turkey.”

In 2006, former Binghamton University professor Donald Quataert resigned as chairman of the ITS board after insisting on the importance of researching the Armenian Genocide, reported The Hoya. The Middle East Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom, in an open letter to then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, complained that “Quataert resigned because of pressure from the Turkish government. Several other ITS board members resigned in support of Quataert.”

As Erdogan became more repressive, the Institute was viewed by the Turkish government as funding academic research that was not favorable to Turkey. In May 2015, Turkish ambassador to the U.S. Serdar Kilic, during the semi-annual dinner at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC, complained to ITS chairman Ross Wilson that “some recent work from the ITS was negative toward the Turkish government and expressed interest in redirecting the work of ITS to politically benefit the government,” The Hoya reported. Amb. Kilic then cancelled the scheduled ITS dinner in the fall of 2015. Finally, “in early September 2015, Saltzman and Evinch, a Washington, D.C. law firm representing Turkey’s U.S. embassy,” told the Institute that the Turkish government would no longer fund the ITS. Later, Kilic sent a letter confirming the end of funding.

“After Turkey cut the organization’s funding, the [Georgetown University’s] School of Foreign Service provided the ITS with additional financial and administrative support,” The Hoya reported. The ITS had enough funds to continue its operations till Sept. 30, 2020 when it finally closed its doors.

The saga of the failed Institute of Turkish Studies should be a lesson to all universities not to repeat the mistake of Georgetown, welcoming a politically-motivated project contrary to its academic standards. Mixing academics and politics is never a good idea!

I came across a Turkish-American website, “tenthousandturks.org,” which is described as: “Ten Thousand Turks Campaign.”

The website includes the combined information of five separate Turkish-American political action committees (PACs): 1) Turkish Coalition USA Political Action Committee (TC-USA PAC); 2) Turkish Coalition California Political Action Committee (TC-CAL PAC); 3) National Coalition of Turkish American Lawyers Political Action Committee, (NC-TAL PAC); 4) National Coalition of Turkish American Women Political Action Committee (NC-TAW PAC); 5) Turkish American Political Action Committee (TURKISH PAC-TX).

The website states that the “Ten Thousand Turks Campaign,” was launched on April 29, 2010. It is “dedicated to reaching out to over 10,000 Turkish-Americans and friends of Turkey willing to take a stand to support candidates that understand the value of positive U.S.-Turkish relations.” This coalition of PACs has adopted the impossible task of fostering “positive U.S.-Turkish relations.” The leader of Turkey, Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has done a great job of undermining U.S.-Turkish relations as well as Turkey’s relations with many other countries. I suggest that instead of wasting their hard earned money, Turkish-Americans get rid of Erdogan which will immediately improve U.S.-Turkish relations.

The group’s website claims that the five Turkish PACs combined have raised a total of $2,152,849 from 2007 to 2020 for U.S. political candidates. Interestingly, the amount of contributions they have received has declined precipitously from a high of $510,765 in 2015-16 to a low of $202,640 in 2019-20. This may indicate that Turkish-Americans are not as hopeful about improving U.S.-Turkish relations by contributing to political campaigns. The website does not explain how the group was able to raise money in 2007 to 2009 before it was formed in 2010.

The Turkish website also provides the amount of money raised by each of the five PACs in the 2019-20 election cycle: TC-USA PAC ($57,500); TC-TAW PAC ($37,750); TC-CAL PAC ($44,490); TC-MIDWEST PAC ($35,800); and TURKISH PAC-TX ($27,000). Some of the groups have changed their names over the years.

Here is additional information regarding each of the five groups:

1) TC-USA PAC: This group’s fundraising declined from $231,950 in 2009-10 to $57,500 in 2019-20. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. G. Lincoln McCurdy is the Treasurer and Louette Ragusa is the Custodian of Records.

2) TC-CAL PAC: This group’s fundraising declined from t$64,400 in 2015-16 to $44,490 in 2019-20. It is headquartered in Long Beach, California. Maria Cakiraga is the Treasurer and Yelda Bartlett is the Northern California Representative.

3) NC-TAL PAC: No fundraising information is available on its own website. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The PAC’s Officers & Executive Committee Members are: Doreen Edelman, President; Robert Levent Herguner, Treasurer; Aylin Acikalin; Zeliha Arslan; Yelda Bartlett; and Lawrence Cenk Laws.

4) NC-TAW PAC: No fundraising information is available on its website. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Tuba Firincioglu is the Treasurer and Louette Ragusa is the Custodian of Records. Louette holds the same position with the TC-USA PAC. The website claims that there are nationwide 11 Turkish elected officials in city and local governments and none at state or federal levels.

5) Turkish PAC-TX: No fundraising information is available on its website and no executives are named. The group is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

The “tenthousandturks.org” website provides the following additional details: “In the 2019-2020 election cycle, the PACs contributed to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Congressional Black Caucus PAC (CBC PAC), and Bold PAC (Congressional Hispanic PAC).

“The PACs also contributed to three U.S. senators, 61 candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and 10 candidates for state or local races. The percentage of wins was 100% for the Senate, 98% for the House, and 50% for state and local offices. Further, the PACs were instrumental in rallying support for the 11 Turkish Americans running for public office in 2020, the largest number ever, and the three spouses of Turkish Americans for a total of 14 candidates.

“Notable successes by the PACs in the 2019-2020 election cycle were the following:

“(1) The comeback of Cong. Pete Sessions, the former Turkey Caucus Co-Chair, in winning Texas’s 17th congressional district after his loss in 2018 when he represented the 32nd district;

“(2) The election of Farrah Khan, a popular friend of Turkish Americans in southern California, as the Mayor of Irvine, California;

“(3) The election of Turkish American Aycha Sawa as the City Comptroller for Milwaukee, Wisconsin;

“(4) The reelection of Turkish American Tayfun Selen as a Freeholder (County Commissioner) of the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders (County Commissioners) in New Jersey;

 “(5) The reelection of Ben Bartlett, spouse of Turkish American Yelda Bartlett, as a City Council Member in Berkeley, California; and

 “(6) The election of Leah Ersoylu, spouse of Turkish American Sarp Ersoylu, as a Trustee of the Newport Mesa United School District in Orange County, California.”

Naturally, Turkish-Americans have the right to contribute to political campaigns in the United States like any other American. The only issue is that they are using their political outreach to spread lies about the Armenian Genocide. Their political fundraising website is full of disinformation about the Genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey against Armenians. This is something Armenian-Americans need to counter with their own “One Million Armenians Campaign.”