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Pelosi to Meet Representatives of Turkish American Community Ahead of Armenian Resolution

Ahead of discussions at the US Congress regarding another Armenian resolution, Speaker of Democratic Party in the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi, warmly approached the demand of Turkish American community to have a meeting to listen Turkish thesis regarding the incidents happened at the final days of Ottoman Empire.

Welcoming the representatives of Turkish American community during the opening ceremony of US Conference of Mayors, Pelosi promised Turkish group to make time for a meeting with Turkish representatives.

Nancy Pelosy (D – CA) was one of the leading figures in the U.S. House of Representatives working towards passing the bill recognizing so called Armenian genocide, which causes strain in Turkish American relations each time it is introduced by pro-Armenian politicians. One of the prominent figures in the domestic policy of U.S., Nancy Pelosi supports the meetings of Armenian diaspora and is towards using the term “genocide” for the incidents of 1915. Insisting on the Armenian bill which was opposed by US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi used to delay or reject Turkish community’s demands towards meeting.

June 19, 2011
Published in Politicians
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Turkey's Ruling Party Wins Election

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's ruling party surged to a third term in parliamentary elections Sunday, setting the stage for the rising regional power to pursue trademark economic growth, assertive diplomacy and an overhaul of the military-era constitution.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters gathered in front of his Justice and Development Party headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, late Sunday.

However, the Justice and Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fell short of a two-thirds majority in parliament, a shortcoming that will force it to seek support for constitutional change from other political groups. Despite a record of democratic reform, the government has faced increasing criticism that it has sought to consolidate power at the expense of consensus-building.

Erdogan sought to allay those concerns in his victory speech, delivered from the balcony of the ruling party headquarters to thousands of ecstatic supporters who gathered below, chanting slogans and waving Turkish flags.

"We will be humble," said Erdogan, who pledged to start work on a new constitution. "We will be seeking consensus with the main opposition, the opposition, parties outside of parliament, the media, NGOs, with academics, with anyone who has something to say."

Erdogan's party won 50% of the votes, according to TRT, the state-run television. It said the Republican People's Party, the main opposition group, had 26% of the vote.

June 12, 2011
Published in Politicians
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Hope Is High for Man Who May Become Turkey's First Christian MP for 50 Year

İstanbul - A 47-year-old former refugee has a chance to become the first Christian member of the Turkish parliament in half a century.

If he succeeds in parliamentary elections on Saturday, Erol Dora, an attorney, could also go some way in adjusting the electoral status quo in this mostly Muslim nation that critics say does not provide its religious minorities with fair representation.

"There has not been a Christian MP since the 1960s," Mr Dora said in an interview from his campaign in the south-eastern city of Mardin this week. "I don't think that's normal."

Mr Dora is a Syriac Christian, an ancient community that numbers about 13,000 in Turkey and that still uses Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.

The region around Mardin is the traditional home of Syriac Christians, but many fled to Istanbul or western Europe when Turkey's south-east became a battleground between Kurdish rebels and the government in the 1980s.

If elected, Mr Dora has promised to speak for Syriac Christians in the national assembly and "work for democracy as a Turkish citizen".

Mr Dora is running as an independent backed by the Party for Peace and Democracy, or BDP, Turkey's main Kurdish party.

Political parties in Turkey must gain at least 10 per cent of the national vote to enter parliament, but that clause does not apply to independent candidates.

The BDP, which holds 5 to 6 per cent in the polls, hopes to send deputies to Ankara by having them run as independents.

In Mardin, a region with an ethnic and religious mix of Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Muslims, Christians and Yezidis, Mr Dora has a chance of being among the five deputies the province will send to Ankara.

His life story resonates with voters in the region. Mr Dora was born in a Syriac village that was evacuated by the military during the fighting between rebels and soldiers in the 1990s.

June 10, 2011
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TBMM Baskani Sahin, 4. Geleneksel Dostluk Yemegi'nde Konustu

Friday, 25 March 2011 - Ali Cinar-New York, Mehmet Ali Şahin, New York'ta Türk Kültür Merkezi ve Türk Amerikan Dernekleri Konseyi tarafından düzenlenen ''4. Geleneksel Dostluk Yemeğine'' onur konuğu olarak katıldı.
Programa , New York Senatoru Kristen Gillibrand, Philidalphia Senatoru, Bob Casey, New York Kongre Uyesi Ed Towns, NYPD Baskani Ray Kelly, New York Eyalet Meclisi Üyesi Steven Cymrowitz gibi isimlerde katildi.
TBMM Başkanı Mehmet Ali Şahin, ''Türkiye ve ABD'nin çok geniş bir coğrafyada, kritik önem taşıyan konularda, kapsamlı bir işbirliği yürüten iki dost ve müttefik ülke olduğunu, ancak iki demokratik ülke aralarında zaman zaman görüş ayrılıklarının yaşanmasının da doğal olduğunu'' söyledi. Friday, 25 March 2011 -

March 25, 2011
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Hocali Katliami Anildi

02/26/2011 Ali Cinar - New York Ermenistan BM Daimi Temsilciliği binasının karşısındaki protesto gösterisi, Genç Türkler Derneği ve New York Azerbaycan Derneği tarafından çeşitli derneklerin de desteğiyle düzenlendi. Ellerinde Türk ve Azerbaycan bayrağı bulunan göstericiler yağmurun altında "Terörist Ermenistan" diye bağırdı ve "Hocalı İçin Adalet" yazılı pankartlar taşıdı.

Hocalı katliamı, 19. yılında New York'ta Ermenistan'ın BM Daimi Temsilciliği binası ve BM binasının önünde protesto edildi. Dünyanın birçok bölgesinde düzenlenen törenlerle katliamda hayatını kaybeden Azeriler anıldı.
NYPD gorevlileri protesto’da bir sorun olmamasi icin onlemini alirken,hava muhalefeti dolayi ise katilim cok istenilen duzetinde olmadi.

February 26, 2011
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Online Sex Videos Force Resignations of Six Members of Turkish Opposition Party

Just weeks before general elections in Turkey, six leading members of an opposition party were forced to resign from Parliament on Saturday after sexually explicit videos of one of them were posted on the Internet.

The Web site that posted the videos had threatened to release others that it said showed the five other members who resigned.

The resignations could severely weaken the Nationalist Movement Party, the second largest opposition group in Parliament, which is struggling to win the minimum of 10 percent of the vote required to be seated in Parliament.

Four members of Parliament from the same party resigned earlier this month after similar videos were posted on the same Web site.

May 21, 2011
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Turkey Denounces Obama's Remarks on 1915 Events

Turkey has denounced the U.S. president’s annual statement marking the deaths of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as “one-sided,” criticizing Barack Obama for issuing the remarks on Turkey’s National Sovereignty day.

"Obama's statement is one-sided and it reads history from a single perspective,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Sunday.

“I want to remind everyone that the statement was made on the same day that our nation was marking National Sovereignty day and the 91st anniversary of the national Parliament; it would be better if this had been noticed by the American side," the minister Sunday said in northwestern province of Çanakkale, where he was participating in a joint press conference with his New Zealand counterpart, Murray McCully, to mark the 96th anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign in World War I.

The U.S. president traditionally releases a statement on April 24, “Armenian Remembrance Day,” but Obama chose to issue his statement this year on April 23, which is marked as National Sovereignty and Children’s Day in Turkey.

April 25, 2011
Published in Politicians
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Congress Celebrates Turkish Caucus Day

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.

April 2, 2011
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Washington, Ankara Grow Closer as Wave of Revolts Continues

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.

March 4, 2011
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Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas Visits New York

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.

February 9, 2011
Published in Politicians
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TCA Donates $100,000 to Help Haiti Earthquake Victims

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.

February 8, 2011
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Turkish-US Strategic Partnership

By Namik Tan *- During the long decades of the Cold War, Turkey was primarily known for its military-strategic contribution to NATO in the defense of freedom. Now, we are increasingly known for our regional ties, economic dynamism and secular democracy and Turkish diplomacy has become an active force in projecting peace and stability in a wider geography spanning the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Asia.

However, conflicts and disputes in our immediate and further neighborhood and beyond are far from resolved. Indeed, the Iranian nuclear issue remains elusive; Iraq is yet to be secured from sources of instability; efforts to ameliorate the Arab-Israeli conflict have not produced the desired outcome; Turkish-Israeli relations are passing through difficult times; the Caucasus continues to witness ongoing conflicts; efforts to ensure stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina face challenges; despite positive developments, international efforts in Afghanistan still confront difficulties; and in Cyprus the ongoing isolation of the Turkish Cypriots continues despite attempts to achieve a lasting settlement. Turkey plays an important and frequently central role on each of these issues, all of which remain high on the United States’ foreign policy agenda.

January 20, 2011
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US Consul General Kilner: "Bilateral Trade Should be Bigger"

The first and the 16th largest economies in the world should have better trade relations, said US Consul General Scott Kilner, who assumed his duties in İstanbul in September 2010. “Bilateral trade is roughly $11 billion in both directions. It should be a lot bigger than that for the first largest and the 16th largest economies in the world. Turkish trade with a number of European countries, and now with Iraq is bigger than with the US,” Kilner told Sunday’s Zaman. Kilner referred to US President Barack Obama, Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s commitment for setting up the framework for an increase in trade relations.

The trade volume between the two countries reached almost $13 billion in 2010, the flow is in the US’s favor as Turkey’s imports from the US are more than double the volume of its exports to the country. In 2009, US exports to Turkey were $7.09 billion while imports from Turkey were $3.66 billion, bringing total bilateral trade to $10.75 billion.

January 18, 2011
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Turkey's Erdogan Chosen "Man of Year" on CNN

According to the news on CNN's Arabic-language portal, 74 percent of readers voted for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and carried him to the top position in the ranking. Syrian President Bashar al-Asad followed Erdogan in the list, getting votes from 20 percent of CNN Arabic's followers.

January 1, 2011
Published in Politicians
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