Our officials who were participating in the conference on Turkish Public Diplomacy, co-hosted by University of South California Annaberg School of Journalism and Yunus Emre Institute on 29 September, 2023, were targeted and harrassed verbally and physically by radical Armenian groups.

The US Diplomatic Security Unit and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) took the necessary security measures to prevent the events, taking place on the University campus, from escalating.

It is worrying that the hate speech by radical diaspora groups, targeting our country and Azerbaijan, and more recently the Armenian Government and the peace process in the region, has evolved into an act of violence. We will initiate the necessary legal process against those who physically assaulted our delegation.

This incident demonstrated once again that, distortion of historical events for narrow and local political motives and statements made to please extremist groups embolden radicalization, hate speech and violence.