The public service award is given by the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to individuals who have served with distinction in public life and have shown a special commitment to seeking out informed opinions and thoughtful views.
At a ceremony, which was scheduled to be hosted at the Four Seasons Hotel in İstanbul on Thursday evening, after Today’s Zaman went to print, Turkey’s Doğuş Group Chairman Ferit Şahenk was also to receive the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship, which is given to those executives who by their example and business practices have shown a deep concern for the common good.
Earlier this week, a Democrat member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives joined US-based Armenian diaspora organizations which have campaigned against Davutoğlu receiving the award. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) wrote to Lee Hamilton, the director of the Smithsonian Institution-based center, and suggested that the award to Davutoğlu is “absolutely inconsistent with the mission” of the center, congressional newspaper The Hill reported on Wednesday.
“We join with Armenians from the 5th district, across the Empire State and around the nation in thanking Congressman Ackerman for standing up against the Woodrow Wilson Center’s controversial decision to honor Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu,” Raffi Mahserdjian, the chair of the Armenian National Committee of New York, was quoted as saying in reports posted on Armenian online media on Thursday. “In defending the legacy of President Woodrow Wilson, Congressman Ackerman is also protecting the American taxpayer from the misuse of US funds to reward Turkey’s genocide denial.”
