Since September 11th–the Turkish Government has linked its cooperation in the US-led war on terrorism to major political and economic concessions from the United States. Turkey’s latest tactic is to extract trade benefits valued at hundreds of millions of dollars–at the expense of American workers–farmers–and taxpayers.
As early as next week–the US Senate Finance Committee and possibly the full Senate will consider legislation (S.2663) to dramatically expand Turkish access to US markets by effectively treating certain Turkish industrial zones as part of the existing US-Israel free trade arrangement.
The ANCA believes that the United States should not reward Turkey as long as it continues its illegal nine-year blockade of Armenia. The World Bank has estimated the annual costs of the blockades of Armenia at between $500 and $720 million–representing one quarter to one third of Armenia’s entire economic output. As a direct result–hundreds of thousands of Armenia’s have been forced to leave their homeland–and many of those that have remained have been pushed into poverty.
Ask your two US Senators to oppose S.2663 unless it is amended to link the lifting of the blockade of Armenia to US trade concessions to Turkey–and 2) provide meaningful trade benefits to Armenia (such as a US-Armenia Free Trade Agreement and other mutually beneficial bilateral economic initiatives) to help offset the multi-billion dollar impact of Turkey’s blockade.
Send an ANCA WebFax today: http://www.anca.org–or call the Capitol Switchboard and ask for your senator.(202) 224-3121.