Turkish-American Influence Leader Protests Biden’s Recognition of Armenian Genocide

Turk­ish media is report­ing that a co-chair of the Turk­ish-Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee protest­ed Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s recog­ni­tion of the Armen­ian geno­cide. Accord­ing to the Dai­ly Sabah report:

April 25, 2021 The Unit­ed States’ Turk­ish com­mu­ni­ty came togeth­er in Wash­ing­ton Sat­ur­day to protest Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s recog­ni­tion of the 1915 events as “geno­cide.” The crowd at the Turk­ish Ambas­sador’s res­i­dence on Sheri­dan Cir­cle held Turk­ish and Azer­bai­jan flags and ban­ners that read: “Let His­to­ry Decide,” and “Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, Not Geno­cide Accu­sa­tions.” The demon­stra­tion came hours after Biden called the events of 1915 “geno­cide,” break­ing U.S. pres­i­dents’ long-held tra­di­tion of refrain­ing from using the term. The move was strong­ly reject­ed by Turkey as “null and void.” Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee (TASC) co-Chair Günay Evinch said Biden threw gas on the fire as opposed to bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er in rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. “He has cho­sen the nar­ra­tive of the Armen­ian com­mu­ni­ty, he has cho­sen to side with the Armen­ian com­mu­ni­ty at the expense of Turk­ish-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty and all her­itage com­mu­ni­ties should be treat­ed equal­ly and just­ly,” said Evinch.

Read the rest here.

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.

• TASC co-chair Halil Mut­lu is Erdoğan’s cousin.

• TASC’s for­mer trea­sur­er, Murat Guzel, detailed his US polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in e‑mails to Erdoğan fam­i­ly members.

Pre­vi­ous GIOR report­ing on TASC includes:

• In April 2021, we report­ed that TASC met with the heads of US Islamist orga­ni­za­tions and the new Turk­ish Ambas­sador to the Unit­ed States.

• In March 2021, we report­ed that TASC want­ed to con­tribute to US-Turk­ish rela­tions by dis­trib­ut­ing food aid through US politicians.

• In March 2021, we report­ed that TASC had suc­cess­ful­ly got­ten an anti-Erdoğan ad pulled from Times Square.