WASHINGTON, DC – AHEPA Supreme President George G. Horiates issued the following statement on October 6:

AHEPA stands with the Armenian American community as conflict has arisen between Azerbaijan and Armenia because of Azerbaijan’s targeting of the Armenian civilian population of Artsakh. Azerbaijan’s violent aggression is instigated by Turkey. Turkey is using Azerbaijan as a proxy to extinguish Armenians in Artsakh. Further, Turkey is utilizing Syrians as mercenaries and deploying them to the region. AHEPA unequivocally condemns Turkey for its actions.

Historically, AHEPA has worked in cooperation with Armenian American organizations, such as the Armenian National Committee of America and the Armenian Assembly of America, on issues of mutual importance, including recognition of the Armenian Genocide, which each chamber of the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed in 2019. Ahepans rallied in protest against the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House alongside Armenian Americans in Lafayette Park, Washington, DC. In 2012, during the 112th Congress, AHEPA worked with the Armenian American community to stop Turkey’s attempt to seek preferential treatment to provide investment to U.S. Indian tribes.

Armenia is a landlocked, blockaded, partitioned, genocide survivor country. AHEPA sounds the alarm of aggression by Erdogan not only in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, Europe and Africa, but also in Armenia as the frontier of freedom. Under the Erdogan regime, Turkey is sponsoring and condoning acts of aggression and violence toward Armenia. At the UN, Erdogan cited a new dynamism in our current time with the pendulum of history shifting towards Asia. The tyrant cited Kashmir and Jerusalem as points where Turkey has concerns and interests. 

The U.S. Congress and the international community must call for Turkey to end its hostilities in the region and act accordingly to preserve peace and stability in the region that is threatened by Turkey, a failed NATO member country.

Western Civilization and Hellenism must outshine this blight of Asia. AHEPA stands with Armenia.

ABOUT AHEPA

Founded in 1922 in Atlanta, Georgia, on the principles that undergirded its fight for civil rights and against discrimination, bigotry, and hatred felt at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, AHEPA is the largest and oldest grassroots association of American citizens of Greek heritage and Philhellenes with more than 400 chapters across the United States, Canada, and Europe. 

AHEPA’s mission is to promote the ancient Greek ideals of Education, Philanthropy, Civic Responsibility, and Family and Individual Excellence through community service and volunteerism. 

More information is available online: www.ahepa.org.