Members-Only Article
During Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary, Mehmet Oz first insisted that he would remain a dual U.S.-Turkish citizen while serving in the Senate. To avoid any conflict of interest he said he would simply recuse himself from any foreign policy issues with any connection to Turkey. Then after intense criticism he agreed that should he be elected to the Senate he would finally renounce his Turkish citizenship.
That appeared to partly settle the issue. It actually got less attention that the fact that Oz isn’t even a resident of Pennsylvania. He lives across the state line in New Jersey. But through the campaign there has also been an oft-repeated suggestion that raising this issue — Oz’s dual citizenship — amounts to a form of prejudice or Islamophobia. In fact, an early May ABC News report claimed that “Oz is not the first high-profile candidate to face accusations of a so-called ‘dual loyalty,’ a claim reminiscent of attacks against Catholics, Jews and members of other religious and ethnic groups in previous generations.”