NBA's Enes Kanter Rips Ilhan Omar, Says She Appears To Be 'On Dictator Erdogan's Payroll'
On Tuesday, Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter ripped Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who that same day had voted against a bill that imposes sanctions on Turkey for invading northern Syria.
The bill in question, House Resolution 4695, passed with the support of 403 members of Congress. Just one Democrat voted against it, according to the New York Post — Omar.
This irritated Kanter, a Turkish native and frequent critic of the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Kanter has previously declined to travel out of the U.S. for fear of being assassinated.
In a Tuesday tweet, Kanter suggested that Omar could be on Erdogan’s “payroll.”
“What an absolute disappointment and shame that the only democrat who did NOT support the Turkish bill aiming to stop the killing of innocent people is @IlhanMN who seems like on #DictatorErdogan ‘s payroll working for his interests, but not for the American people and democracy!” Kanter tweeted.
What an absolute disappointment and shame that the only democrat who did NOT support the Turkish bill aiming to stop the killing of innocent people is @IlhanMN who seems like on #DictatorErdogan ‘s payroll working for his interests, but not for the American people and democracy!
— Enes Kanter (@EnesKanter) October 30, 2019
Omar took to the pages of The Washington Post earlier this month to explain why she thinks imposing sanctions is part of the “same failed playbook” of U.S. foreign policy.
“In so much of our foreign policy, we rely on muscle memory and a limited toolbox to decide the best course of action,” Omar wrote in her Op-Ed. “And, too often, sanctions regimes are ill considered, incoherent and counterproductive.
“Research has shown that sanctions rarely achieve their desired goals. In the worst-case scenario, they hurt the people of a country — generally the very people we’re purporting to help — without making a dent in the country’s behavior. And in the case of human rights abusers, research suggests that more abuses typically occur with economic sanctions in place than without them.”
Omar also came under fire Tuesday for voting “present” on a bill recognizing the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923.
The freshman congresswoman claimed in a statement to CNN that “accountability for human rights violations—especially ethnic cleansing and genocide—is paramount.”
Omar’s office has sent this statement to CNN explaining her present vote: pic.twitter.com/Gpj198jx0p
— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) October 29, 2019
She added, however, that “accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as cudgel in a political fight. It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics.”
Notably, the House bill recognizing the Armenian genocide was condemned by the Turkish government.
“The resolution which has apparently been drafted and issued for domestic consumption is devoid of any historical or legal basis,” Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“Undoubtedly, this resolution will negatively affect the image of the U.S. before the public opinion of Turkey as it also brings the dignity of the U.S. House of Representatives into disrepute.”
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