Latest filings

Turkey taps Congress veteran in lobbying rebuild; Boehner aide’s PR firm tapped for Quebec hydropower push; energy lawyer ends Saudi nuclear lobbying

Turkey taps longtime Lugar aide in lobbying rebuild

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan / Turkish Presidency Facebook page

The Turkish embassy has hired a longtime aide to the late Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) as Ankara begins to rebuild its decimated lobbying operation.

Patrick Garvey‘s new firm Garvey Strategies is expected to be involved in “lobbying, promotion, perception management, public relations, and preparation or dissemination of informational materials.” A retired captain in the US Navy, Garvey was advised Lugar on military affairs, counterterrorism, and Middle East policy and also served as deputy director of the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, the internal research and analysis arm of the US Congress.

Read the story here.

RELATED:
Turkey scrambles to rebuild decimated lobbying team as tensions with US pile up

Americas

Canada (Hydro-Quebec): Washington PR firm Forbes Tate Partners has hired Nick Schaper, the CEO of Alexandria-based digital media firm Engage, as a subcontractor on its account with the US affiliate of Canadian public utility Hydro-Quebec. Schaper will be paid a $75,000 fee for the “development of web and advertising creative content” and “advertising placement and optimization services.” He is a former digital director for the US Chamber of Commerce and then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Forbes Tate recently extended its PR contract with HQ Energy Services (USA) from April through August for a maximum amount of $758,500 as the utility battles opposition from Maine environmentalists to a proposed $1 billion power line to New England.

READ MORE:
Quebec power company prepares for Round 2 against Maine environmentalists

Asia

Japan: Maryland lawyer Aaron Greenfield held a Jan. 8 virtual meeting with Maryland Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones to discuss Japan-Maryland relations. Greenfield has lobbied for the Embassy of Japan since 2015 and is paid $7,500 per quarter ($30,000 per year).

Middle East

Qatar: Fort Lauderdale lobbying firm Rubin, Turnbull & Associates helped organize a meeting between Qatari Ambassador Meshal Bin Hamad Al Thani and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, acccording to a new lobbying disclosure. The embassy hired the firm for $210,000 for six months starting March 15 “to promote commercial, philanthropic, academic, cultural and other exchanges to advance the mutual interests of Florida and the State of Qatar.”

READ MORE:
Qatar hires top Florida firm in seventh new hire since election

Saudi Arabia: Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia at Hogen Lovells, has been blanketing House and Senate offices with calls to blame the Houthi rebels for the failure of Saudi-backed negotiations in Yemen. “It is critically important that Members of Congress put the blame for the needless suffering in Yemen where it belongs:
on the Houthis and on their patron, the Iranian regime,” Coleman wrote in the June 9 emails.

This Monday Republican Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) wrote to US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield urging her to “bring much-needed international attention to the violent human rights abuses and mass indoctrination of the Yemeni people by the Iranian-backed Houthis,” arguing that failure to do so has made them unwilling to compromise.

Saudi Arabia: William Fork, a partner in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman‘s energy practice, has terminated his lobbying registration on behalf of Saudi Arabia as of June 11. The firm has represented the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources since 2018 regarding a potential bilateral agreement and related legal matters concerning the development of a commercial nuclear program by the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE). Partner Jeffrey Merrifield, a former appointee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is now the only registered foreign agent on the contract. Pillsbury previously represented KACARE from 2011 to 2015.

Turkey: The US representative of Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), met with several US officials during the six months through May including National Security Council director for Iraq and Syria Zehra Hirji Bell, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Naz Durakoglu and policy adviser Theodore Bell, as well as House Foreign Affairs Committee senior adviser for Europe and Eurasia Philip Bednarczyk. US representative Yurter Ozcan also met with two officials from the Embassy of Egypt (Cairo and Ankara back competing factions in Libya) and Turkey’s new ambassador to the US, Murat Mercan.

Ozcan also continued to build bridges with Uyghur activists during the period. He met with Rushan Abbas and Abdulhakim Idris of the Campaign for Uyghurs on March 12. The CHP has emerged as a leading critic of what it deems to be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s inadequate response to reports of mass detention and forced labor in China’s western province of Xinjiang.

READ MORE:
Turkish opposition emerges as key ally of Uyghur activists on US China policy

Trending