Turkish envoy accuses American Jewish Committee of being ‘insulting’

PanARMENIAN.Net - In a tersely-worded letter, Turkey’s new Ambassador in Washington, Serdar Kılıç, accused the American Jewish Committee of being “unfair, insulting and patently out of touch with realities” when the group issued a statement on April 23 recognizing the Armenian Genocide and urging Turkey to face its history.

Kılıç wrote the letter to David Harris, the executive director of AJC on April 24. Asbarez says it obtained the letter, in which the Turkish ambassador expresses “our extreme disappointment and regret with the statement issued by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in which the tragic events of 1915 are unjustly labeled as “genocide.” We reject the AJC statement in its entirety.”

Headquartered in New York and with governmental affairs offices in Washington, the AJC was established in 1906 and has grown to become a global advocacy group. On April 23, the AJC issued a statement honoring the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

The Turkish Ambassador goes on to reiterate official Ankara’s denialist position that Armenians were not the only victims during the “final years of the Ottoman Empire,” and cites Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s now infamous “condolence statement” on April 23.

Kılıç also cites notorious Genocide denier Bernard Lewis, quoting a passage from his book, “Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian,” in which he argues that Armenians staged a rebellion and accordingly were killed.

“Ambassador Kılıç’s letter reflects a growing disdain on the part of the Turkish government toward the Jewish American community’s moral stance against Genocide,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

“This remarkably disrespectful diplomatic correspondence confirms what we have always known, namely that the Turkish government has, since day one, viewed its relationship with the American Jewish Committee – and, more broadly, its political connection to the Jewish American community’s moral standing on issues of Genocide – as a cynical alliance aimed at blocking U.S. support for a truthful and just resolution of the Armenian Genocide,” added Hamparian. “Now that the AJC has taken a truthful stand on the Armenian Genocide – a principled position consistent with the views of Americans of Jewish heritage and faith – they are angrily attacked and insulted by the Turkish government. From Ankara’s perspective, the depth of this relationship was clearly only denial-deep.”