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PRESS
RELEASE
For Immediate Release ~ June 5, 2000
Contact: Lucy Keshishian
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SENIOR ROGAN AIDE TAKES PART IN MAJOR AMERICAN TURKISH COUNCIL CONFERENCE
Staffer Crosses Armenian American Picket Line
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"Despite the fact that Congressman Rogan represents the largest Armenian American constituency in the United States, his staff, amazingly, is running around Washington at social events with lobbyists who make a living denying the Armenian Genocide."
--Raffi Asatoorian AADLC Voter Outreach Coordinator, June 5, 2000
Falls Church, VA: The participation of a senior aide to Congressman James Rogan - Deputy Chief of Staff David Silverstein - in a major American Turkish Council (ATC) conference in Washington, DC has raised concerns regarding the Congressman's commitment to the more than eighty thousand Armenian Americans who live in his district - the single largest concentration of Armenians living outside of Armenia.
"It is certainly alarming that Congressman Rogan's Deputy Chief of Staff chose to join so many anti-Armenian lobbyists at the American Turkish Council conference," said AADLC Voter Outreach Coordinator Raffi Asatoorian. "Despite the fact that Congressman Rogan represents the largest Armenian American constituency in the United States, his staff, amazingly, is running around Washington at social events with lobbyists who make a living denying the Armenian Genocide."
The two day program - the ATC's 19th Annual Conference on US-Turkish Relations featured a series of presentations, receptions, and a banquet all designed to improve Turkey's image and advance its interests among senior US government officials, the business community, and the public at large. Turkey has traditionally used public relations firms and corporate allies to counter criticism of its denial of the Armenian Genocide, blockade of U.S. humanitarian aid to Armenia, backing for Azerbaijan's aggression against Nagorno Karabagh, military occupation of Cyprus, persecution of Armenians and other Christian minorities, and its worsening record on human rights and torture
The two day conference, which began on March 29th, was funded in large part by arms manufacturers who sell weapons to the Turkish military. Both the conference program and social events were well attended by Turkey's corporate allies and by several dozen of Turkey's leading lobbyists in the United States. Among these were a number of leading anti-Armenian figures in America today, including former Representative Robert Livingston; the self-proclaimed "Congressman from Istanbul" Steve Solarz, and Turkish lobbyist and former Department of Defense official, Richard Perle.
A vocal group of Armenian Americans demonstrators protested outside the conference's final banquet against Turkey's campaign to deny the Armenian Genocide and its worsening record on human rights. Rogan's staffer, who passed the demonstrators while entering and leaving the event, neither approached the protesters to voice his support for their human rights concerns, nor made any effort to subsequently condemn the anti-Armenian content of the conference.
"Rather than working to pass the Armenian Genocide Resolution, Congressman Rogan apparently has his staff rubbing elbows and drinking champagne with Turkey's hired guns," added Asatoorian. "Does anyone seriously believe that somebody with these priorities is really pushing Republican leaders to pass the Armenian Genocide Resolution? The sad fact is that Jim Rogan can't even get the Republican Chairman of the International Relations Committee Ben Gilman to support the Genocide Resolution; and his friends in the Republican leadership have yet to cosponsor the Genocide bill," he concluded.
The ATC, according to its mission statement presented on its website (http://www.americanturkishcouncil.org), is "A Business Association dedicated to friendship and the promotion of U.S.-Turkish commercial, defense and cultural relations." The conference was also supported by the American Friends of Turkey and the Turkish-US Business Council of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey.
The ATC website includes a full listing of participants in the conference, including Rep. Rogan's Deputy Chief of Staff. (http://www.americanturkishcouncil.org/2000/attendee00.htm)
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