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The Need To Engage Turkey With Pressure

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  • The Need To Engage Turkey With Pressure

    THE NEED TO ENGAGE TURKEY WITH PRESSURE
    By Gene Rossides

    Hellenic News of America
    http://www.hellenicnews.com/readnews.html? 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
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