Turkey: Centuries of Multicultural History and Trade Denied

Temple at Ain Dara, after bombing by Turkish forces, Syrian Human Rights Observatory.

Turkey Claims all Art and Artifacts: Centuries of Multicultural History and Trade Denied.

We ask that the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Property Advisory Committee follow the criteria under U.S. law, and reject the request from the Republic of Turkey for unnecessary, over-reaching, and legally unjustified import restrictions. The legal criteria are not met. The factual basis for the Turkish request is absent. So is any practical argument for an MOU having any positive effect. What we do know is that an Agreement with Turkey Will Help President Recip Erdogan’s Campaign of Religious Extremism and Xenophobia. Religious minority communities both in Turkey and in the United States will suffer from the gratuitous granting of import restrictions to a repressive and abusive regime that already claims rights over minority heritage beyond what are allowed under Turkish law.