POLITICAL PARTY: Republican Democrat

OFFICE SOUGHT: (House or Senate) (State/District)

CAMPAIGN WEB SITE:

CONTACT PERSON RELATED TO SURVEY:

EMAIL:

The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) is an educational-advocacy organization for Turkish Americans. Approximately 500,000 Turkish Americans will be casting ballots for Members of Congress in November 2008. To inform their political judgments, TCA is requesting that you respond to the following seven questions. Your responses will be posted on the Internet and otherwise be made available to Turkish American and other voters. Your cooperation would be welcomed. An informed electorate is the keystone to enlightened democracy.

1 - Support Turkey’s fight against the PKK terrorist organization. The United States lists the PKK as a foreign terrorist organization. It has been responsible for more than 30,000 deaths in Turkey. It is financed by extortion, drug trafficking, and related sordid crimes. Assisted by United States intelligence and otherwise, Turkey has exercised its right under international law to cross the Iraqi border to capture and kill PKK terrorists—the same right asserted by the United States to capture and kill Al Qaeda adherents.

Do you support continuing the close collaboration between the United States and Turkey in defeating the PKK in all of its haunts, including from Northern Iraq controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)? Would you support legislation congressional legislation that would deny any United States assistance to the KRG either directly or through the Iraqi central government until the Secretary of Defense certifies that the KRG is committed to defeating the PKK?

RESPONSE:

2 - Support U.S.-Turkey Collaboration in Promoting Energy Independence. As a major transit route, Turkey is geo-strategically essential to diminishing the oil and gas dependency of the United States and Europe on unreliable suppliers in favor of a diversity of energy providers. One supplier has employed its market power to politically blackmail Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic.

Do you support congressional legislation that would provide financial incentives for United States companies to invest in the Turkish oil and gas industry, including pipelines that would also enlist the cooperation and land corridors of Georgia and Azerbaijan?

RESPONSE:

3- Support for Regulatory Harmonization. Artificial trade barriers are frequently created by discordant health and safety standards between the trading nations, for example, the safety of foods, drugs, equipment, or aircraft.

Would you support a joint United States-Turkey initiative to achieve regulatory harmonization to eliminate artificial trade barriers?

RESPONSE:

4- Support for a Reunified Cyprus within a Bizonal, Bicommunal Federation and an Easing of Turkish Cypriot Isolation. Cyprus has been de facto or de jure divided since 1963 when Greek Cypriots torched the finely balanced 1960 Constitution in a quest of Greek Cypriot supremacy. In April 2004, Turkish Cypriots voted overwhelmingly in favor of the so-called “Annan Plan” that would have reunified Cyprus. Greek Cypriots voted against reunification. At present, the parties are negotiating over a blueprint for a single sovereignty and single citizenship for the island. Turkish Cypriots have offered reunification within a bizonal, bicommunal federation that would protect the rights of both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots from domination or oppression. But Greek Cypriots are stalling because Turkish Cypriots confront an international embargo that is crippling their economy and culture. 

Do you support a reunified Cyprus within a bizonal, bicommunal federation coupled with a partial or complete lifting of the international embargo on Turkish Cypriots?

RESPONSE: 

5- Favor United States Participation in International Commission of Experts to Conduct Further Investigation and Examination of the Armenian Genocide Claim. The Turkish Prime Minister has proposed that an international commission of experts be given access to all relevant archives to conduct additional research and analysis of the Armenian claim that the tragic events of World War I amounted to genocide. Renowned experts such as Bernard Lewis of Princeton University and Guenter Lewy of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst dispute the aptness of the Armenian genocide label, and note the much greater Ottoman Muslim suffering and deaths during the Russian invasion assisted by Armenian traitors or collaborators. The 56-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has voted overwhelmingly (with Armenia the sole negative) in favor of the Prime Minister’s basic idea of further research and analysis of the genocide allegation by historians and experts. Further, on June 12, 2008, the Swedish Parliament overwhelming rejected a proposed resolution affirming the Armenian genocide claim. 

Do you support the Turkish Prime Minister’s proposal to create an international commission of experts with access to all relevant archives to continue research and analysis of the Armenian genocide claim as the superior approach to promoting reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia and discovering historical truth? And would you support United States participation in this commission?

RESPONSE: 

6- Oppose Armenian Claims to Turkish Territory. Armenia’s powerful Dashnak Party has declared that its “sacred duty” is to reclaim “Western Armenia,” an area compromising a large swath of eastern Turkey. Reference to “Western Armenia” is celebrated in the Armenian constitution. Armenian officials regularly insist that Turkey accept the boundaries demarcated by the stillborn Treaty of Sevres in lieu of the current boundaries ratified by the Kars Treaty of October 13, 1921 as a precondition for improved Turkish-Armenian relations. A claim by one nation to the territory of another is always a casus belli under international law.

Would you support a congressional resolution rebuking Armenia’s claim to Turkish provinces under the stillborn Treaty of Sevres or otherwise?

RESPONSE: 

7- Support Turkeys’ Border Closing to Armenia to Sanction Armenia’s Aggression against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia initiated warfare against Azerbaijan in 1993 by invading the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and forcibly displacing up to one million Azerbaijani citizens. Nagorno-Karabakh itself constitutes 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory. Earlier in 2008, the United Nations General Assembly directed Armenia to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh and to assist the return of displaced persons; and, the United States Congressional Research Service found that Armenia is blockading Azerbaijan’s Nakchevan province. Turkey has closed its border with Armenia to protest its unprovoked warfare.

Do you support a congressional statute that would endorse Turkey’s border closing and deny all but humanitarian United States assistance to Armenia until it ends its occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and pays reasonable compensation to the one million Azeri citizens who were displaced by Armenia’s illegal aggression?

RESPONSE:

THE TURKISH COALITION OF AMERICA SALUTES YOUR ASSISTANCE
IN PROMOTING AN INFORMED ELECTORATE