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As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan continues his visit to Washington the leaders of the Greek and Armenian American communities have joined together in formally calling upon the White House to set strict legal conditions on any new trade agreements involving Turkey, Asbarez.com reported. 

The Turkish government has, in the months leading up to this week’s Obama-Erdogan summit, aggressively pushed for Turkey’s inclusion in a far-ranging Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the U.S. and the European Union, as well as for its own bilateral free trade agreement with the United States. The American Hellenic Institute (AHI), the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), and the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), in May 10 testimony submitted to the U.S. Trade Representative, argued forcefully for any such agreements to “require, as a statutory precondition, that the Turkish government fully withdraw its unlawful and brutal military occupation of Cyprus, where human rights and religious freedom are routinely violated, unconditionally lift its illegal economic blockade of Armenia, and immediately end all obstacles to trade, investment, and other forms of commerce it currently imposes on Cyprus and Armenia.”

While welcoming, as a general principle, the U.S. Trade Representative’s commitment to the growth of international trading relations based upon the rule of law, the three organizations stressed that, “in the case of Turkey, we would not advance our national interests, further our economic prosperity, or promote our core values by rewarding a nation that so egregiously and flagrantly undermines the integrity of the global trading system by occupying a European Union member state and refusing to end its two decade blockade of landlocked Armenia.”