The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) celebrated the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Caucus on US-Turkish Relations and Turkish Americans with a lunch and an evening reception.
 
28 Members of Congress and nearly 300 congressional staffers attended the events, which were co-hosted by TCA with Caucus co-chairs Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN/9th), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA/11th), Rep.Virginia Foxx (R-NC/5th) and Rep.Ed Whitfield (R-KY/1st). TCA was particularly honored to host Rep.Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL/18th), Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the event.
 
The lunch, held in the Cannon House Office Building, was overflowing for 2 hours, as Congressional Members and their staff stopped by to learn about Turkish-Americans, Turkish history and the importance of Turkey to the United States in foreign policy, business and other key issue areas.
 

Washington hosted two high-level Turkish diplomats this week and had a chance to listen to the Turkish administration’s foreign policy vision spanning from Eurasia to the Middle East and North Africa during various think tank discussions.

One of the visiting diplomats, Ambassador Selim Yenel, deputy undersecretary for Bilateral Affairs and Public Diplomacy, was in Washington primarily for the sixth meeting of the U.S.-Turkey Economic Partnership Commission to follow up previous meetings to find ways to increase the trade between two countries. However, Yenel spent considerable time to reach members of the Congress, especially from the House Foreign Relations Committee, met some of the new members of the commission, and also talked at the German Marshall Fund, in a panel organized by Ian Lesser, senior Transatlantic fellow there. Interest in this particular discussion was high, as many of Washington’s serious Turkey watchers as well as diplomats from various European countries crowded the conference room.

Brooklyn Borough Mayor Marty Markowitz welcomed the mayor of Istanbul to Brooklyn, with a ceremony featuring a marching band and huge platters of Junior's cheesecake, a ceremony he says was paid for entirely by the Turkish consulate.

"Brooklyn -- proud home to America's largest Turkish-American population by county -- was extremely thrilled to welcome Mayor Kadir Topbas, the leader of Istanbul," Markowitz said.

On February 7, the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) presented a $ 50,000 donation to Operation Helping Hands to help victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. TCA had previously donated $50,000 to Operation Helping Hands and to Cross International, another relief organization, bringing the total TCA donation for the Haiti relief efforts to $100,000.
 
The donation ceremony was held at the Florida Turkish American Association (FTAA) Turkish House with the participation of Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in whose district Operation Helping Hands is headquartered, Joe Pena of The United Way and Serap Odabas-Yigit, President of FTAA. Congresswoman Lehtinen praised TCA and Operation Helping Hands for their efforts to provide vital assistance to the people of Haiti. The event received coverage in the Miami Herald and the Bradenton Herald and on local television networks.