By Taniel Koushakjian
FLArmenians Editor

Hit-Piece

On February 22, the Turkish Institute of Progress (TIP) retained Mercury Public Affairs, LLC to lobby on its behalf in Washington, D.C. According to the filing, Mercury will lobby specifically on “Turkish-US relations.” Two days later, Mercury’s Vice Chairman, Adam Ereli, a former U.S. Ambassador and Deputy Spokesperson at the State Department, penned a hit-piece on Armenia entitled “Putin’s Newest Satellite State,” on Forbes’ opinion page. However, Forbes originally neglected to mention the fact that Ereli’s firm is under contract with the anti-Armenian lobby group.

This is not the first time a high-priced Washington lobbyist has used the stroke of the pen to attack Armenian Americans. In 2014, Brenda Shaffer wrote a piece in the New York Times opinion page entitled “Russia’s next land grab.” The title sounds familiar. The story’s byline for Shaffer states that she “is a professor of political science at the University of Haifa and a visiting researcher at Georgetown.” However, Shaffer did not disclose her role as a paid consultant to Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company SOCAR. After the Times realized they had been duped, the editor’s rightly appended the story with the following statement: “This Op-Ed, about tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, did not disclose that the writer has been an adviser to Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company. Like other Op-Ed contributors, the writer, Brenda Shaffer, signed a contract obliging her to disclose conflicts of interest, actual or potential. Had editors been aware of her ties to the company, they would have insisted on disclosure.”

Hours after this article was posted on the Armenian Agenda, the by line at the top was moved to the bottom and a new description was added at the top acknowledging TIP as a client of Mercury. This is the right thing to do and I hope other publications will be aware of seriousness of the issue in future.

Peace?

The Turkish Institute of Progress, a New York based Turkish lobby group is the latest player trying to prop up Turkey by putting down Armenian Americans. The group was established months prior to the centennial anniversary of the Armenian Genocide to “provide a forum for dialogue in pursuit of peace and cooperation between Turkey and the international community,” according to its website.

Instead of outright opposing Armenian Genocide recognition efforts by American human rights activists, the Turkish lobby’s genocide denial strategy shifted its approach to the issue on the centennial anniversary. TIP’s other hired public relations firm, Levick, tried to get a counter genocide resolution introduced that “focused on the next 100 years” by Rep. Curt Clawson (R-FL) who had been recruited to introduce the bill by Clawson’s predecessor, Congressman Connie Mack (R-FL), now a lobbyist for Levick.

A pushback from Clawson’s own constituency thwarted the TIP’s efforts, and the resolution, H. Res. 226, was instead introduced by Rep. Jeff Sessions (R-TX). The bill currently has two cosponsors.

I am personally aware of the Turkish government’s coordinated anti-Armenian effort with TIP, Levick, and now Mercury, as I was in Clawson’s district on April 12, 2015. I was invited to give a presentation on the Armenian Genocide at the Holocaust Museum and Education Center of Southwest Florida in Naples. Upon my arrival to the Holocaust Museum, I was shown an intimidating letter by Ozgur Kivanc Altan, Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Miami addressed to the Holocaust Museum demanding that they cancel my presentation.

From Peace to Hit-Piece

The Turkish lobby’s strategy of genocide denial cloaked as peace has now turned to attacking the Republic of Armenia itself in order to mask Azerbaijan’s $4 billion dollar arms purchase from Russia, not to mention Azerbaijan’s gross abuse of human rights, corruption scandals, jailing of journalists, and drift away from democracy and towards authoritarian rule.

The article originally appeared in the Armenian Agenda and is available here.