By Ahval,
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent meeting with U.S.-based investors coincided with a decision by two California-based retirement funds to withdraw from Turkey-owned investments, columnist Kerim Ülker wrote for Dünya newspaper on Friday.
While the California State Senate voted on the “Divestment from Turkey” bill on Thursday, Erdoğan was on a video call with CEOs from some 20 U.S.-based mega-corporations, including Pepsi Co., Cargill and Honeywell, Ülker said.
In the meeting Erdoğan discussed current matters related to Turkey with the CEOs, and spoke to encourage investment in Turkey.
Among the issues discussed was U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent recognition of the 1915 events as the Armenian Genocide, which Turkey rejects wholesale.
Meanwhile, California state senators voted unanimously in favour of the bill, which will allow retirement funds CalPERS and CalSTRS to choose investments not issued or owned by Turkey, California Globe news website reported. The two funds that provide retirement benefits for the state’s public employees and teachers are worth a combined $650 billion, according to Ülker.
The “Divestment from Turkey” bill, introduced by state senators Anthony Portantino and Scott Wilk, aims to help place more economic pressure on Turkey, and send a message that California stands behind Armenians, California Globe said.
The bill would “impose much needed economic consequences on a regime that continues to engage in an ongoing campaign of genocide denial”, the news website cited Portantino as saying.
The sizeable Armenian-American population in the state, reaching 40 percent in some cities, has “relived intergenerational trauma” when in October Azerbaijan launched an offensive to take back territory in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, with great support from Turkey, the senator said.
“I believe divesting from Turkey sends a strong message to the world that California does not do business with genocidal regimes and countries with a history of civil and human rights abuses. It is consistent with our basic humanitarian principles.”
California will stand with Armenians “until the Turkish government acknowledges its shameful history”, Wilk said.
CalPERS alone has $200 million’s worth of investments in Turkey.
Turkey acknowledges the mass deaths of Armenians following an Ottoman order for their exile during World War I, but rejects wholesale that any of them occurred in a systemic and planned manner, or in as great numbers as scholars cite. The generally accepted view is that an exile order based on some Armenian groups aligning themselves with Russia during WWI against the Ottoman Empire resulted in the death of some 1.5 million Armenians and other Anatolian Christians.
