Turkish American Influence Group Commemorates Coup with Government-linked Organization

The Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee (TASC) coop­er­at­ed with an orga­ni­za­tion with sev­er­al con­nec­tions to the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment to com­mem­o­rate the July 2016 Turk­ish coup. Accord­ing to the TASC  tweet:

June 28, 2022: In part­ner­ship with the 15 July Asso­ci­a­tion, TASC com­mem­o­rat­ed our 251 mar­tyrs who lost their lives in the treach­er­ous coup attempt that took place on July 15, 2016, with our exhi­bi­tion “The Last Walk” in New York Times Square. May the souls of our mar­tyrs rest in peace. [Trans­lat­ed by Google with edits]

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Accord­ing to its web­site, the 15 July Asso­ci­a­tion was found­ed short­ly after the July 2016 Turk­ish coup to com­mem­o­rate the coup as well as its mar­tyrs and vet­er­ans. It also orga­nizes inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences and pan­els to speak against Fethul­lah Gülen, a for­mer ally of Pres­i­dent Erdoğan, who Turkey blames for the coup. 15 July Asso­ci­a­tion founders and board mem­bers include:

• Mustafa Varank, Turk­ish Indus­try and Tech­nol­o­gy Minister
• Bünyamin Albayrak, Diyanet Reli­gious Ser­vices Gen­er­al Manager
• Hasan Doğan, Chief Advi­sor to Pres­i­dent Erdoğan

The 15 July Asso­ci­a­tion is also a mem­ber of the Nation­al Will Plat­form, which two British aca­d­e­mics have described as found­ed by Islam­ic civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, asso­ci­a­tions, and foun­da­tions. They also describe the orga­ni­za­tion as hav­ing declared “a full com­mit­ment to the AKP’s polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy in wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed press releases.”

The Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee (TASC) is strong­ly tied to Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan. TASC co-chair Gunay Evinch is a prin­ci­pal of Saltz­man & Evinch, a law firm retained by Turkey and reg­is­tered as a for­eign agent of Turkey in 2020. In addi­tion, TASC’s for­mer trea­sur­er, Murat Guzel, detailed his US polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in e‑mails to Erdoğan fam­i­ly mem­bers. GIOR has report­ed that co-chair Melih Bek­taş may have Turk­ish ultra­na­tion­al­ist and Islamist sympathies.