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Representative Adam Schiff and eight colleagues in the California congressional delegation on Wednesday sent a letter to Governor Jerry Brown to urge him to sign AB 1597, legislation passed by the state legislature which would require the California Public Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to divest from investments in assets owned, issued, or controlled by the Turkish government if certain conditions are met, Asbarez reported.

AB 1597, which was sponsored by Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian, passed the Assembly and Senate in August, and Governor Brown has until the end of September to sign it into law. The legislation was introduced to respond to Turkey’s continued denial of the Armenian Genocide.

“We are grateful to Congressman Schiff and his colleagues for expressing their unequivocal support for AB 1597, and we call on Governor Brown to heed the call from thousands of his California constituents who have written to him and asked that he sign this important bill into law. Turkey must not be permitted to continue to fund its campaign of Genocide denial with California’s investments, and California’s public employees should not be forced to invest their pension funds into a tyrannical Turkish regime,” said Nora Hovsepian, Esq., the chair of the Armenian National Committee of American-Western Region.

As Schiff and the other signers wrote in the letter, “We believe this legislation is a proportionate and appropriate response to Turkey’s continued denial of the Armenian Genocide, as well as its violations of human rights and actions counter to United States interests.” The letter also makes note of the increasingly autocratic rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, including the suppression of dissent and the imprisonment of journalists, as well as other steps they have taken contrary to U.S. national security interests.

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