Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is paying a working visit to Washington on 18-21 April 2015 upon the invitation of the Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Within the scope of the visit, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu will meet with high ranking officials in the U.S. Administration, exchange views with the executives of several think-tanks and receive representatives of the Turkish community in the USA.

During the first day of his visit, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu visited the Turkish-American Culture and Civilization Center in Maryland. Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu then met with representatives of Muslim and Turkish communities in the USA.

Within the scope of his visit, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu met with representatives from the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the largest umbrella group of mainstream Muslim American organizations. On this occasion, USCMO published a press statement pointing out that one-sided interpretation of 1915 events without proper investigation by independent historians may both damage the efforts aimed at achieving reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and jeopardize American-Turkish strategic relations.

Full Text of the Statement:

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/uscmo-statement-on-1915-turkish_armenian-events.en.mfa

Stating that Muslims face some difficulties, one of which is the rising Islamophobia, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu said “Our duty is to narrate Islam, the religion of peace. Islam does not tolerate terrorism. However, terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and DEASH unfortunately tarnish the image of Muslims all over the world.”

In the second day of the visit, Minister Çavuşoğlu is planned to attend the lunch organized by the American-Turkish Council and to address at the conference titled “Turkey’s role in a Turbulent Middle East” organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.