Talking Turkey

  Daniel Lippman at Politico Influence:

MERCURY DROPS TURKEY UNDER PRESSURE: “The lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs has cut ties with the Turkish government following a pressure campaign by Armenian-American activists incensed by Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in ongoing hostilities with Armenia. The firm’s decision to scrap its $1 million contract with Turkey is a victory for Armenia in a conflict that’s playing out in Washington as well as the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh along Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan.”

— “In the weeks since long-running tensions between the countries flared on Sept. 27, Armenian-American activists have worked to deprive Azerbaijan and Turkey of what Aram Hamparian, the executive director of Armenian National Committee of America, described as some of their most potent weapons: their Washington lobbyists. ‘A lot of people have bought a lot of summer homes and fishing boats and put their grandkids through college by lying about Armenia and covering up for Azerbaijan,’ he said.” Activists pressured Mercury “by holding protests outside its offices in Washington and Los Angeles and urging Mercury’s clients to cut ties with the firm if it kept representing Turkey.”

— The campaign “recalls the push to convince Washington lobbying firms representing Saudi Arabia’s government to cut ties with the kingdom in 2018 after Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Washington Post, where Khashoggi had been a contributing opinion writer, threatened to bar two lobbyists from writing columns for the paper unless their firms stopped working for Saudi Arabia. The pressure ultimately led five lobbying firms to sever ties with the kingdom.”

— Turkey also retains Capitol Counsel and Greenberg Traurig, while Azerbaijan relies on BGR Group, according to disclosure filings. Armenia, meanwhile, hired former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Alston & Bird last month for help in Washington. “Hamparian said he planned to ramp up pressure on BGR Group now that Mercury has capitulated. But BGR might be a tougher target: The firm said in a statement that it ‘intends to continue its representation of Azerbaijan.’”