Dr Mehmet Oz and Turkey

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TV personality Dr. Mehmet Cengiz Oz is the Republican nominee for US Senator from Pennsylvania. He could become the first senator to hold dual nationality, including Turkish and American.

What country does Oz owe allegiance to? This is what journalists and others are rightly asking. This is an important question, especially since Turkey remains a thug Member of NATO and shameless repressive and corrupt.

Moreover, Ankara has long supported international terrorist organizations such as ISIS.

Oz and Turkish Terrorism

Ahmet S. Yayla served as Turkey’s counterterrorism chief from 2010 to 2013.

He recognizedin 2020 that “Turkey was a hub for … more than 50,000 ISIS foreign fighters and ISIS’s main source of logistical material [including] IED [improvised explosive devices]making Turkey and ISIS practically allies.

Terrorism Expert/State Department Advisor Dr. David L. Phillips directs Columbia University’s Peacebuilding and Human Rights Program.

InTurkey: a state sponsor of terrorism?(2021), Phillips showed that if a “non-NATO country behaved like Turkey, it would justify being designated as a state sponsor of terrorism”.

Has Oz ever frankly condemned terrorism, repression or corruption in his country? Apparently not.

oz even care which Turkey sponsors ISIS and other terrorist organizations? I can’t find any proof.

Take her January 10, 2022 Washington Examiner editorial. He expressed his “deep concerns about many of his [Turkey’s] authoritarian domestic policies and harmful foreign policies.

Who “Strategies,” exactly? He didn’t say. I asked his campaign for examples. He did not answer.

Moreover, the so-called “anxieties” of Oz, noted journalist Benjamin Baird, only appeared after that of the latter scathing, detailed, exposed the doctor’s “numerous disputes with the Turkish government” (national review, December 23, 2021).

Americans, Baird said in June, may rightly “question Oz’s loyalty and wonder why he wishes to extend his allegiance to an oppressive authoritarian state.”

John Fetterman, Oz’s Democratic opponent, failed to criticize Oz on the above points, in particular his rival’s apparent indifference to Ankara’s support for terrorism.

Oz even claims that he was “never politically involved in Turkey in any capacity” and doesn’t “really have a relationship with the leaders there [in Turkey].” Oh, so that’s it?

President Erdogan is the “leader” of Oz

In an interview on Turkish television, the doctor said this after meeting with President Erdogan: “I met our leader in Turkey [emphasis added]. There is the question of how I can help Turkey as a representative [emphasis added].”

Oz served two months in the Turkish army and owns extensive real estate properties in Turkey. They include a rented $2 million dormitory free of charge to the regime’s Ministry of Education.

When Oz announced his candidacy in 2021, the American Ambassador to Turkey, Hasan Murat Mercan, immediately telephoned his congratulations.

The mega-millionaire candidate, incidentally, didn’t change his voting address from his New Jersey mansion to his in-laws’ home in Pennsylvania until 2020.

Oz claims to keep his Turkish nationality only because his mother lives in Istanbul and suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Yet exiled Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt points out that Oz could easily acquire a Turkish “blue card,” which confers most citizenship privileges.

In March, Oz said that as a senator with dual citizenship, he to renouncer request certain US security clearances. Now, however, he swears he will give up his Turkish nationality – but only if elected.

Mike Pompeo, President Trump’s Secretary of State, interrogates why Oz had “the time and energy to vote in a [2018] Turkish election,” but not in the 2018 New Jersey primary.

The candidate, Pompeo added, must detail “the scope and depth” of his relationship with Turkey as they raise “national security concerns”. He did not do it.

Unfortunately, probably because Trump is absurdly pro-Turkish, he endorsed Oz.

The Doctor and Mass Murder

In 2019, US Senate Resolution 150 passed 100-0. It recognized the genocides of “Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians… and other Christians” committed by Ottoman and post-Ottoman Turkey from 1915 to 1923.

When asked about the Armenian Genocide, the Oz campaign hit back with this misleading generalization: Our candidate “opposes genocide and the killing of innocents in all their forms…the evils of the First World War should be commemorated.

Of course, few people publicly foster genocide, murder and evil. Oz’s noncommittal nonresponse once again places him on Turkey’s side and at odds with the US Senate.

The true intensity of Oz’s love affair with Turkey is known to few Pennsylvania voters.

The Ozturkish love story

Oz was a consultant and publicist for Turkish Airlines, 49% owned by the Turk government.

Once upon a time elected to the High Advisory Council of the World Turkish Business Council (DTiK) based in Istanbul. This last one is affiliated with the Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Council (DEiK), a arms of President Erdogan’s regime.

ounces spoke at the 2019 DTiK conference in NY City. It was co-hosted by Gunay Evinch.

Ankara hiring Evinch’s law firm, Saltzman & Evinch, to collect information on certain critics of Turkey in America.

Evinch co-chairs the Turkish-American National Steering Committee (TASC) with Halil Mutlu, Erdogan’s cousin. In America, Mutlu represented Erdogan’s Islamist AKP party.

At a TASC fundraiser in 2019, ounces seated next to Murat Guzel, the host of the event and the subject of FBI financial surveys.

At a 2019 Turkish parade in Brooklyn, NY, Oz and Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul kissed each other. In 2018, the US Treasury Department penalized Gul for Ankara’s unjust detention of Andrew Brunson, an American Christian pastor.

Oz offers lifestyle programming on the BiP communication platform. BiP belongs to Turkish Wealth Fundled by Erdogan himself.

In 2022, Enes Kanter Freedom, NBA basketball star, former Turkish citizen and critic of Erdogan, tweeted:

The people of Pennsylvania need [sic] understand that [Dr. Oz] is a foreign agent and he works for Dictator [Erdogan]. Ask yourself why a Turkish citizen, who lives in Jersey and works in New York, would want to be a senator from Pennsylvania [emphases added].”

Good guys finish last

In the May GOP primaryOz beat David McCormick by just 951 votes out of 1.3 million.

If McCormick had used the above points (some of which I gave to his campaign and another GOP contender, Kathy Barnette) to hammer Oz, he would have won.

If John Fetterman doesn’t have the stomach to expose the entire Oz’s love affair with Turkey, especially Ankara’s support for Islamic State, could also lose – and will deserve it.

David Boyajian’s main foreign policy objective is the Caucasus. His work is here (https://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/David_Boyajian).

Key words:
David Boyajian, Dr Oz, Dr Mehmet Cengiz Oz, Dr Mehmet Oz, Erdogan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, republican, Turkey, American politics, USA, American politics
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