Embassy of Turkey, Washington, D.C. | |
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Location | Washington, D.C. |
Address | 2525 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. |
Coordinates | 38°54′59.3″N77°03′21.45″W / 38.916472°N 77.0559583°W |
Ambassador | Sedat Önal |
Website | washington.emb.mfa.gov.tr |
The Embassy of Turkey in Washington, D.C. is the diplomatic mission of the Republic of Turkey to the United States. It is located at 2525 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest in the Embassy Row neighborhood.
Previously, the embassy had been housed in a mansion farther south, at Sheridan Circle and 23rd Street, N.W. The building today serves as the Turkish ambassador's residence. It was originally built for Edward Hamlin Everett, a bottling millionaire, in 1915. The Everett House was designed by George Oakley Totten Jr., a Washingtonian who had spent a brief period in Turkey as the official architect for Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The Turkish government leased the building in 1932 and purchased it four years later.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the embassy held numerous parties and musical sessions for famous jazz artists, such as Duke Ellington 's band, organized by Ahmet and Nesuhi, the sons of then-ambassador Munir Ertegun and later the founders of Atlantic Records. [1] Notably, these sessions were not racially segregated, with both black and white musicians being invited, and the Ertegun brothers also managed D.C.'s first integrated public concert in 1942. [2]
In the 1980s, planning began to replace the chancery due to size concerns, with a new design that utilized Turkish vernacular architecture being proposed. However, there was considerable local opposition due to the historic status of the old building and concerns it would not fit in with the rest of the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood. The first design was rejected by zoning authorities, so Turkey commissioned Shalom Baranes Associates for a new plan that had a smaller footprint and fit in better. Reportedly, local approval was gained in January 1991 during the first night of the Gulf War air campaign, where Turkey used its support of coalition forces as leverage. The new chancery was inaugurated by Turkish President Süleyman Demirel on April 23, 1999. [3]
On May 16, 2017, armed Turkish security forces attacked pro-PKK protesters demonstrating on behalf of the North American Kurdish Alliance outside the ambassador's residence during a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, forcing intervention by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. [4] On March 31, 2016, Turkish security forces had attacked protesters and journalists further down Embassy Row during a speech by President Erdoğan at the Brookings Institution. [5]
Embassy Row is the informal name for a section of Northwest Washington, D.C., with a high concentration of embassies, diplomatic missions, and diplomatic residences. It spans Massachusetts Avenue N.W. between 18th and 35th street, bounded by Scott Circle to the south and the United States Naval Observatory to the north; the term is often applied to nearby streets and neighborhoods that also host diplomatic buildings, such as Kalorama.
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Munir Ertegun was a Turkish legal counsel in international law to the "Sublime Porte" of the late Ottoman Empire and a diplomat of the Republic of Turkey during its early years. Ertegun married Emine Hayrünnisa Rüstem in 1917 and the couple had three children, two of whom were Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, the brothers who founded Atlantic Records and became iconic figures in the American music industry.
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Sheridan Circle is a traffic circle and park in the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The traffic circle, one of two in the neighborhood, is the intersection of 23rd Street NW, Massachusetts Avenue NW, and R Street NW. The buildings along this stretch of Massachusetts Avenue NW are part of Embassy Row, which runs from Scott Circle to Observatory Circle. Sheridan Circle is a contributing property to the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District and the Sheridan-Kalorama Historic District, both listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). In addition, the equestrian statue of General Philip Sheridan is 1 of 18 Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C., that were collectively listed on the NRHP.
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The Embassy of Austria in Washington, D.C., is the primary diplomatic mission of the Republic of Austria to the United States and represent the interests of Austria and Austrian citizens in the U.S. It is located at 3524 International Court, NW, Washington, D.C., in a neighborhood primarily occupied by diplomatic missions. Its immediate neighbors are the Embassy of Slovakia, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, and the Embassy of Egypt. The chancery building houses and operates several services and offices relevant to the pursuit of its mission in the United States.
A chancery is the principal office that houses a diplomatic mission or an embassy. This often includes the associated building and the site. The building can house one or several different nations' missions. The term derives from chancery or chancellery, the office of a chancellor. Some nations title the head of foreign affairs a chancellor, and 'chancery' eventually became a common referent to the main building of an embassy.
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The Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States is the diplomatic mission of the People's Republic of China to the United States, located at Northwest Quadrant, Washington D.C.
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Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated by Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, an off-duty Turkish police officer, at an art exhibition in Ankara, Turkey on the evening of 19 December 2016. The assassination took place after several days of protests in Turkey over Russian involvement in the Syrian Civil War and the battle over Aleppo.
The Attack on protestors at the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C. broke out on May 16, 2017, between Turkey's Police Counter Attack Team and a crowd of protesters, some of whom carried flags of a Kurdish political party. According to Turkey, Turkish bodyguards were acting in self-defense and the protesters were tied to a terrorist group. However, according to US officials the Turkish bodyguards attacked the protesters unprovoked. A protest leader denied that any participants had ties to any terrorist group. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was in Washington that day to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and observed the clashes from a distance.
Edward Hamlin Everett House, is a 1915 Beaux-Arts mansion located, just off Sheridan Circle, at 1606 23rd St., NW in Washington, D.C. that today is the Residence of the Ambassador of Turkey.