THE NEED TO ENGAGE TURKEY WITH PRESSURE
By Gene Rossides
Hellenic News of America
newsid=10313&lang=US
June 16 2009
There is an urgent need in the interest of the United States to engage
Turkey with pressure in order to make progress and to settle a number
of outstanding issues.
Words are important but they are not enough. Words need to be followed
by action – by specific acts to get results.
Meetings with photo opportunities can be helpful, but if they are not
combined with calls for action they can become quite harmful because
they leave the obvious impression the community is not really serious.
All meetings with Executive Branch officials or members of Congress
and there staffs should include specific requests for diplomatic,
political and economic pressures on Turkey to achieve our objectives.
Cyprus
It is not enough for the U.S. to say it supports a Cyprus settlement
based on bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with a single sovereignty.
In any meetings or one-on-one exchanges with Congressional or Executive
Branch officials, members of our community should call for the removal
now of Turkey�s illegal occupation forces, estimated at 40,000,
and its illegal Turkish settlers/colonists from Anatolia, estimated
at 180,000, and specifically request that the U.S. inform Turkish
officials that the U.S. will take action to pressure Turkey to comply.
Similarly, regarding other aspects of the Cyprus problem, for example,
the return of the ghost city of Famagusta, as promised by the U.S. and
Turkey in the 1978 debate on lifting the rule of law arms embargo,
the community needs to request action to pressure Turkey to return
Farmagusta now.
Aegean Boundary
It is not proper nor in the interests of the U.S. for the U.S. to
refuse or fail to state what the law is regarding the maritime boundary
in the Aegean.
Community organizations and individuals should call on the U.S. to
state publicly the law regarding the maritime boundary in the Aegean
and specifically request the U.S. to inform Turkish officials that
if they do not stop their threats against Greece in the Aegean and
aerial encroachments in the Aegean, that the U.S. will take actions
to pressure Turkey to comply.
Ecumenical Patriarchate
It is not enough for the U.S. to call for religious freedom and
protection for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and for the reopening of
the Halki Patriarchal School of Theology.
Our community organizations and individuals should call on Executive
Branch officials and members of Congress to state publicly their
support for religious freedom and protection of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate and the reopening of Halki, and the return of over
7,000 church properties confiscated by the Turkish government; and
specifically request that the U.S. inform Turkish officials that if
they do not respond affirmatively that the U.S. will take actions to
pressure Turkey to do so.
It is a disgrace and a strain on the State Department that it has
failed to apply the specific terms of the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) to Turkey. The Act lists 15 specific
remedial actions the President can take against countries violating
religious freedom.
Turkey
Turkey is an anti-Christian and anti-Semitic nation. In the 20th
century Turkey was the leading anti-Christian nation in the world,
killing over 2,500,000 Christians in its Armenian Genocide, Pontian
Greek Genocide and Assyrian Genocide. The infamous burning of Smyrna
and slaughter of the Armenian and Greek Christians of Smyrna ordered
by Ataturk should never be forgotten. And the catastrophic pogrom
against the 100,000 Greek Christians of Istanbul on September 6-7,
1955, brilliantly described by Professor Speros Vryonis, Jr. in his
monumental book The Mechanism of Catastrophe (2005), should never
be forgotten.
Contrary to the false and misleading statements of State Department
officials and certain former U.S. ambassadors to Turkey and Turkey�s
paid U.S. foreign agents of influence registered with the Department
of Justice, Turkey has not been a "loyal ally."
As I have written previously Turkey is an unreliable ally who
actually aided the Soviet Union�s military on several occasions
during the Cold War over the objections of the U.S. and NATO. And more
recently the Turkish parliament voted in March 2003 not to allow use
of Turkish territory to open a second front against Saddam Hussein
because they wanted a total of 32 billion dollars from the U.S. The
U.S. Treasury negotiator called Turkey�s actions "extortion in the
name of alliance."
Appeasing Turkey these past 50 years has not worked. It is past time
to take action against Turkey to achieve U.S. aims.
U.S. actions to be taken
There are a number of specific actions the U.S. can and should take
against Turkey in the interest of the U.S. to strengthen our position
and interests in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. The
fifteen specific actions listed in IRFA regarding violations of
religious freedom can obviously be applied to other foreign policy
issues such as Cyprus and the Aegean. The President and the State
Department should do so.
These actions range from an official public demarche, a public
condemnation, a denial of working, official or state visits, to
directing the U.S. EXIM bank and other U.S. institutions not to approve
any credits, guarantees or insurance; to withdrawing U.S. security
assistance; to directing U.S. executive directors of the IMF and World
Bank to oppose and vote against loans; and to impose trade sanctions;
among others.
Community Action Needed
Call and write to the President and ask him to stop the appeasement of
Turkey and to take specific actions against Turkey in the interests
of the U.S. to settle the Cyprus and Aegean problems and to achieve
religious freedom in Turkey and the reopening of Halki.
Contact the President as follows:
President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW Washington, DC 20500 Tel. 202-456-1111 (Comments) 202-456-1414
(Main Switchboard) Fax: 202-456-2461 E-mail: [email protected]
Send copies to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates, National Security Adviser General James Jones,
(Ret.) and Congress.
Gene Rossides, founder of the American Hellenic Institute and former
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
