ANCA-WR urges California officials to give Erdogan the cold shoulder during World Cup stop

The Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) is demanding that Los Angeles and California officials refuse any official engagement with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is expected in Southern California for the June 25 FIFA World Cup match between the U.S. and Turkey.

ANCA-WR says Erdogan has spearheaded Turkey’s decades-long campaign to deny the Armenian Genocide and provided military backing for Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh.

“No red carpets, no staged smiles, no photo-ops for a genocide denier who armed the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh and calls it a matter of pride,” said Oshin Harootoonian, chairman of the ANCA-WR Board of Directors. “Los Angeles will not be used as a backdrop for his rehabilitation tour.”

The group is asking civic leaders to publicly confirm they will not extend a welcome to Erdogan, avoid any ceremonial contact with the Turkish delegation, decline photo opportunities tied to the visit, and issue statements of solidarity with the Armenian-American community. The ANCA-WR says it has already written to local, state, and federal officials making that case.

The Armenian Genocide, the systematic killing and deportation of approximately 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923, is recognized by the U.S. federal government, the State of California, and the City and County of Los Angeles. Turkey continues to deny it.

During the 2020 war over Artsakh, Erdogan supplied Azerbaijan with military advisers and combat drones, support he publicly acknowledged. Three years later, after a nine-month blockade, Azerbaijan’s military offensive drove more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians from the region in a single day. Erdogan celebrated the result standing alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

With more than one million Armenian Americans living in California, most of them descendants of Genocide survivors, the ANCA-WR argues that welcoming Erdogan would be a moral failure, not a diplomatic obligation.