US, Turkey postpone business meeting

An annual conference on United States-Turkey relations scheduled for April 11-14 has been postponed due to tensions over the U.S.’s official attitude toward Armenian genocide claims, according to the chairman of a Turkish business association.

The 29th Annual Conference on United States-Turkey Relations was postponed due to fears there would be low attendance by Turkish representatives, according to Uğur Terzioğlu, chairman of the Turkish-American Business Association, or TABA/AmCham.

“With respect to our government’s politics and depending on the fact whether U.S. President Barack Obama uses the world ‘genocide,’ we are supporting the postponement of the American-Turkish Council [ATC] meeting,” he said.

“We hope to see the dark clouds over politics to disappear. We wish for trade relations between the two countries, as well as investments, to develop further,” he said.

The Turkish-American Business Council, or TAIK, and the ATC made the postponement decision together, said the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, or DEİK.

On Saturday, DEİK said the conference, which was planned for the second week of April in Washington, was postponed due to the approval of a resolution on genocide claims in a Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Congress and the political tensions it subsequently raised.

On March 4, the U.S. House committee approved a resolution that supported Armenian genocide allegations during the deaths of Ottoman Armenians in 1915.

In response to the development, Turkey has temporarily recalled its ambassador in Washington, Namık Tan, to Ankara.