April 14, 2014 - 19:44 AMT
Turkish media accuse Hizmet group of backing Genocide resolution

The Turkic American Alliance (TAA) has refuted the pro-government daily Sabah's and Yeni Şafak's claims of “treachery,” linking the Hizmet movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, with the passing of the Armenian Genocide resolution at the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Today's Zaman said.

Pro-government Sabah daily claimed on Sunday, April 13 that the “parallel structure” (in reference to the Hizmet movement) has funded Senator Menendez's election campaign. Yeni Şafak daily wrote on Saturday that Menendez attended a gala meeting of TAA, which has ties with Hizmet, only one day before the resolution was adopted at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 10, suggesting that Hizmet was behind the preparation of this resolution against Turkey's interests and using an American senator to that end.

Sabah claims that Menendez has received $9,500 in total from two schools, one law firm and one computer company that have allegedly close ties to Gülen.

TAA President Faruk Taban and TAA's member organization Turkic American Association Council (CTAA) President Furkan Koşar made a joint statement on Saturday that Yeni Şafak's story is erroneous, only based on a photo taken at the gala meeting of TAA. In a photo that appeared in Yeni Şafak on Saturday, CTAA President Furkan Koşar and Menendez are seen talking to each other.

TAA, the largest national Turkic organization in the U.S., held its third annual Turkic American Convention in Washington, D.C., on April 12-13 in cooperation with the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON).

Calling the story a lie, TAA and CTAA said that they have always expressed their displeasure to Menendez over resolutions that upset Turks and Azerbaijanis. The statement said that linking TAA and CTAA with the Armenian resolution at the U.S. Congress is part of an operation to manipulate people's perceptions. Taban and Koşar said the journalist and Yeni Şafak will be sued for linking their organizations with the passing of the Armenian resolution.

For the first time in nearly a quarter century, a U.S. Senate committee on April 10, adopted an Armenian Genocide Resolution, calling upon the Senate to commemorate this crime and encouraging the President to ensure that America’s foreign policy reflects and reinforces the lessons, documented in the U.S. record, of the still-unpunished genocide.

With a vote of 12 to 5, the Committee voted to condemn and commemorate the Armenian Genocide.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) spearheaded the effort to have this influential foreign policy panel speak clearly regarding the Ottoman Turkish Government’s centrally planned and systematically carried out campaign of genocide from 1915-1923, which resulted in the deaths of over 1.5 million men, women and children.