Turkey, US demand investigations into protest brawl

Author

04 June, 2017

Across the U.S. Capitol, 29 U.S. Representatives, led by Congressional Hellenic Caucus Co-Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), called on the State Department to take swift action and hold perpetrators accountable.

The controversy started Tuesday when Turkish security guards accompanying Erdogan on his visit got physical with demonstrators outside Turkey's embassy in Washington.

Police have said 11 people were injured, including a Washington police officer, and two people were arrested for assault.

'It has been formally requested that the USA authorities conduct a full investigation of this diplomatic incident and provide the necessary explanation, ' the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The demonstrators began aggressively provoking Turkish-American citizens who had peacefully assembled to greet the president", the embassy said.

The altercation broke out on May 16, when a group of protesters that included Armenians and Kurds say they were attacked by Erdogan supporters and members of his own security detail. First, the Turkish embassy issued a statement blaming protesters for starting the violence despite video evidence contradicting that claim.

Turkey is mad at the United States for stopping its security forces from beating up protesters in Washington D.C. "The Turkish-Americans responded in self-defense". "This is Erdoğan's security detail", said McCain. Turkey's ambassador to the U.S., Serdar Kilic, was summoned to the State Department last week and a department official termed the conduct of Turkish security personnel "deeply disturbing", according to CNN.

Members of Erdogan's security team also clashed with demonstrators past year outside the Brookings Institution in Washington, where Erdogan was giving a speech.

The brawl that erupted last week between protesters in Washington and the bodyguards of Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended up in the background of last week's avalanche of news, but as Donald Trump escaped the country for a week, the fallout from the fight continued.

Speaking to tens of thousands of people in Ankara, Erdogan said he was back after "998 days of separation" from the party and outlined a vision for its immediate future and elections scheduled for November 2019 with new executive and grassroots teams. The country is calling for a "a full investigation of this diplomatic incident".

US Senator John McCain said that the Turkish ambassador should be thrown "the hell out of the United States of America" after the fighting.


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