Erdogan Calls for Turkish American Community Unity Against “Smear Campaigns”

Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has under­lined Türkiye’s deter­mi­na­tion to advance Turk­ish-Amer­i­can rela­tions on the basis of alliance and strate­gic part­ner­ship, empha­siz­ing deep­en­ing coop­er­a­tion dur­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sec­ond term. Speak­ing at a din­ner host­ed by the Turk­ish-Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee at Rock­e­feller Cen­ter, Erdoğan high­light­ed the sol­i­dar­i­ty and uni­ty of the Turk­ish com­mu­ni­ty in the Unit­ed States. “I regard your pres­ence here today, after trav­el­ing thou­sands of miles from across Amer­i­ca, as the strongest expres­sion of our uni­ty of hearts,” Erdoğan said, con­grat­u­lat­ing civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions that help keep this spir­it of sol­i­dar­i­ty alive.

Read more: https://www.azernews.az/region/247935.html

Key Points

• Erdo­gan urged the near­ly half-mil­lion-strong Turk­ish Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty to take on greater roles at the local and fed­er­al lev­els to strength­en their rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Amer­i­can politics.
• The pres­i­dent called for the Turk­ish Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty to close ranks in the face of smear cam­paigns, stat­ing it is an absolute neces­si­ty to act in sol­i­dar­i­ty and unite around shared val­ues rather than focus­ing on differences.
• Erdo­gan not­ed that anti-Turkey groups and lob­bies oper­ate in Amer­i­ca, empha­siz­ing that these struc­tures are dis­turbed by stronger Turk­ish-Amer­i­can rela­tions and seek to obstruct Turk­ish com­mu­ni­ty suc­cess in the Unit­ed States.
• The pres­i­dent praised the Turk­ish com­mu­ni­ty’s grow­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty in Amer­i­ca’s social, polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and aca­d­e­m­ic life, con­grat­u­lat­ing them on their hard work and on their role in strength­en­ing ties between Turkey and the Unit­ed States.

Turkish American National Steering Committee: Turkey’s Influence Operations in the United States

The Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee oper­ates as a con­duit for Turk­ish gov­ern­men­tal influ­ence through lead­er­ship fig­ures direct­ly tied to Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s inner cir­cle. Pre­vi­ous co-chair Halil Mut­lu is Erdoğan’s cousin and became the offi­cial U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Erdoğan’s rul­ing AKP par­ty. Cur­rent co-chair Gunay Evinch oper­ates a law firm retained by Turkey and reg­is­tered as a for­eign agent, while for­mer trea­sur­er Murat Guzel detailed his polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in emails to Erdoğan fam­i­ly mem­bers. Accord­ing to Influ­ence­Watch, Erdoğan has pub­licly sup­port­ed TASC for pro­mot­ing his pol­i­cy agen­da, and the orga­ni­za­tion is part of a net­work that his inner cir­cle planned to use to skirt U.S. laws.

TASC’s board demon­strates sys­tem­at­ic inte­gra­tion with Turk­ish struc­tures through over­lap­ping roles. Vice-Chair­man Gokhan Dogan simul­ta­ne­ous­ly serves as pres­i­dent of Young MÜSİAD USA, while pre­de­ces­sor Israfil Demir also led that orga­ni­za­tion before becom­ing TASC co-chair. MÜSİAD aims to syn­the­size busi­ness and Islam­ic con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues and has finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed the AKP par­ty. The Mid­dle East Forum report­ed that Demir led the youth branch­es of Turkey’s rul­ing AKP in the U.S. before being sen­tenced to fed­er­al prison in 2024 for traf­fick­ing coun­ter­feit goods. TASC has also coor­di­nat­ed events with Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups where Erdoğan met with U.S. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers.

The orga­ni­za­tion’s activ­i­ties reveal sophis­ti­cat­ed influ­ence cam­paigns tar­get­ing Amer­i­can insti­tu­tions. TASC has con­duct­ed numer­ous meet­ings with U.S. Con­gress­men and Turk­ish offi­cials, includ­ing dis­cus­sions with Turkey’s dias­po­ra gov­ern­ment agency about col­lab­o­ra­tion. The orga­ni­za­tion suc­cess­ful­ly removed an anti-Erdoğan adver­tise­ment from Times Square and ran counter-adver­tise­ments through LED screen vans. Focus on West­ern Islamism doc­u­ment­ed that Evinch’s law firm received over $15 mil­lion from the Turk­ish Embassy between 2000 and 2020 to gath­er infor­ma­tion about Turkey’s critics.

Turk­ish influ­ence oper­a­tions achieved pen­e­tra­tion into New York City gov­er­nance through the cul­ti­va­tion of May­or Eric Adams. The Cam­paign Finance Board inves­ti­ga­tion revealed that Turk­ish influ­ence per­me­at­ed Adams’ cam­paign through dona­tions from Turk­ish nation­als and ben­e­fits from state-linked enter­pris­es. The U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice indict­ment alleged Adams accept­ed over $123,000 in lux­u­ry trav­el and that his cam­paign received ille­gal for­eign dona­tions through straw donor schemes that defraud­ed New York City of more than $10 mil­lion in match­ing pub­lic funds.

The New York Dai­ly News report­ed that TASC mem­bers donat­ed thou­sands to Adams’ oper­a­tions since 2015. The fed­er­al indict­ment doc­u­ment­ed that Adams pres­sured the Fire Depart­ment to expe­dite approvals for the Turk­ish con­sulate despite unmet safe­ty require­ments, allow­ing Erdoğan to attend the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny. The DOJ indict­ment revealed that a Turk­ish offi­cial told an Adams staffer that because Turkey had sup­port­ed Adams, it was now “his turn” to sup­port Turkey.

Exter­nal References:
— Turk­ish Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee — InfluenceWatch
— New York City May­or Eric Adams Charged With Bribery And Cam­paign Finance Offens­es — U.S. Depart­ment of Justice
— FBI probe into NYC May­or Adams’ cam­paign puts spot­light on Turk­ish influ­ence group tied to Erdo­gan — New York Dai­ly News

Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.