On Tuesday, September 12, the United Nations' 72nd General Assembly will begin with world leaders coming to New York, among them will be Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In May when Erdogan came to meet with President Trump in Washington, his security personnel physically attacked Turkish-American, Kurdish protesters in front of the Turkish Embassy. It was later reported that President Erdogan watched the violent assault, much as he would in his own country where he has oppressed his opposition. Here is footage posted by Voice of America.

U.S. lawmakers ask State Department to step in

Tillerson has already shown himself to be too slow to take direction and appropriately represent the State Department as its Secretary of State. With his attempts on behalf of the Trump administration to cut the Department's budget by 30 percent and letting various human welfare programs "rot", Tillerson has already drawn fire from Congress for not representing America's values.

Nonetheless, House foreign affairs chairman Ed Royce and ranking Democratic member Eliot Engel have made an effort to reportedly sent a letter to Tillerson asking that he intervene and prevent another violent assault by Turkish security. At the time of the first confrontation this year, lawmakers claimed to be outraged saying that Turkish security personnel needed to respect the law in the U.S.

Charges against Turkish security personnel

The letter was sent around the same time that a grand jury returned indictments against four more Turkish security personnel to go with 15 others who were involved in the attacks. One report by CNN titled: "Lawmakers to Tillerson: Tell Turkish security not to fight at UN" recalls that there were also clashes outside the Brookings Institution in March of 2016 when Erdogan was speaking.

Local police had to intervene as well. Here is footage from that incident.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution in May to condemn the attacks against protesters. The Turkish Foreign Ministry had denounced the charges saying that they are unjust and biased. It's been reported that the State Department launched an investigation against the security personnel itself and had summoned Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S., Serdar Kılıç.

At the time, Sen. John McCain demanded that Kılıç be thrown out of the country for the attacks. During the violent altercation in May, two of Erdogan's Body Guards had been detained for which he expressed outrage. Those guards were later released. Given Tillerson's slow response and lack of assurance, it's unknown whether he is going to take any action to prevent Erdogan's security from attacking protesters again.
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