22 October 2009 / MEHMET DEMIRCI, NEW YORK
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the largest Jewish organizations in the US, expressed concern over growing tensions between Turkey and Israel following the exclusion of Israel from an international military exercise in Turkey and a television series broadcast on state television station TRT -- protested by Israel as “state-sponsored incitement” -- during a meeting with a Turkish-American group this week.
Kaya Boztepe, head of the Federation of Turkish American Associations (FTAA), who had a meeting with Abraham Foxman, the national director of the ADL, said ADL officials were concerned over “the direction that Turkey is taking.” “Everything that we have built so far is being destroyed step by step. We are receiving a slap in the face every day,” Boztepe quoted Foxman as saying during the one-and-a-half-hour meeting. “They are angry and offended,” Boztepe said. “We were the only Jewish institution in the US to support the Turkish government, and we attached great importance to Turkey. We are saddened. We have suspicions on where Turkey is heading,” Foxman said, according to Boztepe. During his visit to the US in 2004, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with Foxman, stating that anti-Semitism has no place in Turkey. Foxman also visited Turkey in July of last year.
