Norton Asks for Action to Strengthen Public Safety During Turkish Presidential Visit

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today expressed her deep concern regarding President Trump's meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the District of Columbia tomorrow, November 13th, and urged that federal security personnel, including U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division Police and State Department Diplomatic Security assist the District's Metropolitan Police Department with public safety. Norton said that President Erdogan should not have been invited to Washington in light of unprovoked violence in 2017 by Turkish security officials who brutally attacked peaceful protestors outside the Turkish Ambassador's residence here and were indicted on felony counts of assault. Prosecutors have dropped the cases against all but four of the guards because of possible immunity and the difficulty getting Turkey to extradite them. At the time, Norton condemned the 2017 attack and wrote Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asking him to bar any Turkish official who committed, encouraged, facilitated or otherwise participated in the assaults from reentering the United States. Norton also asked Tillerson to expel any such official who remains in the country.

Moreover, Norton warns that the recent foreign policy decision by President Trump to leave our Kurdish allies without any U.S. protection and allow Turkey to invade their territory will only heighten tensions as President Erdogan visits D.C. Following this offensive, there were reports of Turkish militias committing war crimes.

"Two years ago, President Erdogan's security forces beat and injured peaceful U.S. protestors in the nation's capital," Norton said. "Erdogan brought with him tactics he uses in his own country to the world's oldest democracy, which prides itself on protecting protests against U.S. policy and the policy of other countries. Erdogan certainly did not deserve an invitation at this time when recent actions by Turkey against the Kurds and its atrocities in the region have inflamed world opinion, and Congress has just passed a resolution for the first time recognizing the Armenian Genocide. When you come to the nation's capital, you respect our residents, our values, and our freedom of speech. World leaders who fail to do so should never be invited back."