US STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ANGERS DIASPORA

Today’s Zaman
March 22 2010
Turkey

An influential US-based Armenian diaspora organization has targeted
a senior US State Department official for his remarks on Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent threats to expel illegal
Armenian immigrants.

On Friday Erdogan had dismissed criticism and reassured Turkey’s
Armenian community that they are not being targeted after facing anger
for his threats to expel illegal Armenian immigrants. "We have never
had any problems with our Armenian citizens," Erdogan said, complaining
that he was misquoted in the media, which he said misrepresented his
remarks to suggest that they are targeting Turkey’s Armenian community.

Also on Friday the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
suggested that Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian
Affairs Philip Gordon, the US State Department’s top diplomat for
Europe, "sought to justify recent threats by Erdogan to deport Armenian
citizens from Turkey."

ANCA called upon "President [Barack] Obama to immediately condemn
Secretary Gordon’s comments and affirm for the record that the US
government in no way condones renewed threats by Turkey against the
Armenian people."

According to ANCA, Gordon said last week that "in my opinion, Prime
Minister Erdogan only wanted to highlight that there are 100,000
Armenians living in Turkey illegally. I don’t believe he threatened to
deport them from the country. Those are separate issues. Every country
has an issue with illegal immigrants and approaches it according to its
laws." ANCA said Gordon’s comment was originally reported by CNN-Turk,
reprinted on the Armenian news site Tert.am and verified by ANCA in
a conversation with State Department officials.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress