On January 20, the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) and the Turkish Cultural Foundation (TCF) celebrated the official opening of their new Washington, D.C. office on H-Street with a lively reception featuring minority community leaders, embassy officials, and several Members of Congress. Please visit here for more information on this event.

On February 1, TCA sent open letters to Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of the News Corporation, and Roger Ailes, Chairman of News Corporation-owned FOX News, expressing concern over anti-Turkey sentiments voiced in the exchange between Bret Baier of FOX News and Texas Governor Rick Perry during the January 17 Republican presidential debate. To view the letters sent to both organizations, please visit here. Also, to view TCA's separate statement condemning Perry's inaccurate and offensive remarks, please visit here.

On January 7, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) visited Turkey for the first time and was introduced to her Turkish relatives at an Istanbul reunion organized by TCA.

Ros-Lehtinen's maternal grandfather, Celebi Adato, and his family belonged to one of the Ottoman Balkans' thriving Jewish communities which were almost completely destroyed during the Balkan Wars This history parallels the vast and systematic destruction of Ottoman Muslims of the time-approximately 1.5 million of which died in the Balkans and another 400,000 of which became refugees during these wars. To learn more about this history, read here. Also, the book, War and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin, which sheds new light on contemporary conflicts in the Balkans as well as the Caucuses, has recently been published and libraries may order a copy from TCA for free.

For a third year, TCA sponsored the "Fifth Annual Turkish Canadian Youth Congress" organized by the Council of Turkish Canadians. TCA Resident Scholar, Bruce Fein and TCA Project Manager, Beril Unver participated in the Congress which took place on January 20-22, 2012 in Ottawa-Gatineau.

On January 25, TCA organized a day on Capitol Hill for 24 graduate students hailing from Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. This marks the third year that TCA has facilitated meetings with Members of Congress and senior staffers for participants in Bahcesehir's American Studies Center's annual School of Politics USA program.

TCA is getting ready to take a congressional delegation to Turkey on February 9-14. The delegation, scheduled to meet high-level officials for a series of policy discussions, will include Congressman Frank Guinta (R-NH) and four senior staffers.

For the second consecutive year, TCA, along with an official Turkish delegation led by Deputy Undersecretary for Economy Cemalettin Damlaci, will participate in the Reservation Economic Summit (RES) to be held in Las Vegas on February 26-March 1. Organized by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED), RES is the premier American Indian economic development conference held in the U.S.