Mikhail Klimentov, The Washington Post (c) 2024
Long before Eric Adams was charged Thursday over accusations of “corrupt relationships” with Turkish business executives and at least one official, the New York mayor was known for his sometimes eccentric connections to Turkey.
“I’m probably the only mayor in the history of this city that has not only visited Turkey once, but I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit to Turkey,” Adams told attendees at a Turkish flag-raising ceremony in New York last October.
In his remarks, Adams raved about the Turkish cities of Antalya and Istanbul, and the beauty of the Cappadocia region. He even shouted out Gaziantep, a city near Turkey’s border with Syria, notable in recent years for the large number of Syrian refugees who have settled there and for destruction suffered in a devastating earthquake in 2023.
“New York City is the Istanbul of America,” Adams said – a compliment he has also bestowed upon Kyiv, Port-au-Prince, Mexico City and Zagreb, among many other cities.
Adams’s travels to Turkey – and the alleged inappropriate transactions that ensued – are documented in the federal indictment. But in public appearances and statements over the years, Adams has made no secret of his affinity for the country. A Politico analysis of Adams’s public schedule found that as Brooklyn’s borough president, Adams attended 80 events celebrating or relating to Turkey over the course of eight years.
In 2015, for example, he traveled to Istanbul twice. On one of those trips, Adams signed a sister city declaration linking the New York City borough of Brooklyn to Istanbul’s Üsküdar district. At the ceremony in Turkey, Adams reportedly told the audience, “Brooklyn is America’s Üsküdar.”
That same year, Adams was named an “honorary faculty member” at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul during one of several visits to the institution, according to a review of public records by the City, a New York news outlet. Bahcesehir has an affiliation with Bay Atlantic University in D.C. The New York Conflict of Interests Board said the trip, which cost roughly $15,000, was funded by Bahcesehir and Turkish Airlines, among other sources.
Turkish Airlines is a major focus of the unsealed indictment against Adams, which alleges that the mayor was accepting “heavily discounted luxury air travel” from the airline.
In a more flamboyant moment, Adams appears in a cameo role in the 2017 Turkish romantic comedy “New York Masali,” in which he plays a version of himself. Beset by two Turkish men seeking administrative favors, such as a restaurant permit, he says he doesn’t understand Turkish but offers to take a selfie with them.
“Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America,” Adams tell them.
In 2019, around the time he began his mayoral bid, Adams attended a gala celebrating Turkish Airlines and was photographed with two airline executives, one of whom later joined his transition team when he won the 2021 mayoral election.
The indictment alleges that Adams received illegal campaign contributions and inappropriate gifts, including comped international travel and accommodations. In 2021, a Turkish official told Adams that it was “his turn to repay” the official, according to the indictment. It says Adams pressured the New York City Fire Department to allow a Turkish consular building to open without a fire inspection in advance of a “high-profile” visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The FDNY official responsible for the FDNY’s assessment of the skyscraper’s fire safety was told that he would lose his job if he failed to acquiesce,” the indictment reads. “After Adams intervened, the skyscraper opened as requested by the Turkish Official.”
The alleged request to ignore safety protocols echoed the lax enforcement of similar building codes in Turkey that contributed to widespread death and destruction in an earthquake in the country in February 2023 – and to harsh criticism of the government that ensued.
Civil engineers and planners had warned officials for over a decade that many of the buildings struck down by the powerful quake had been poorly constructed or were not up to code. Despite newer earthquake-related building regulations, “newer buildings were built rapidly but, in general, shoddily,” Polat Gulkan, professor of structural engineering at Baskent University in Ankara, told The Washington Post last year.