The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has cancelled a forum set for this week on doing business with Turkey.

The move comes in the aftermath of the beating last week of protestors in Washington, D.C., by bodyguards of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We have informed our members that the meeting with the business delegation from Turkey scheduled for Thursday, May 25 at the Chamber office has been called off,” a statement issued Monday by the Chamber reads. “This decision was made because we determined that holding the meeting would not be in the best interests of our members or the visiting delegation from Turkey.”

Widely circulated videos show Erdogan’s security detail attacking protesters on May 16 outside the Turkish ambassador’s home on Embassy Row in Washington. The videos show Erdogan’s detail leaving his side and crossing a police line to beat American citizens on U.S. soil who had gathered to protest the Turkish government’s policies.

The attack met with bipartisan condemnation and calls to expel the Turkish ambassador. But this past weekend, the Turkish government demanded an apology from the United States for the protestors’ behavior.

The chamber forum, which was to have been cosponsored by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Office of International Trade, was to have featured a roundtable with executives and board members from 12 Turkish companies in the construction, engineering, aerospace, textiles, manufacturing, and financial sectors.

The request to cancel the forum came from Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Kerkorian, the first Armenian American elected to the council. Armenians have long blamed the Turkish government for a massacre of more than 1 million Armenians during 1915-16; the Turkish government has denied responsibility for the killings.

“I thank the L.A. Chamber for being responsive to my request and cancelling the Los Angeles Turkey Business Forum,” Krekorian said in a statement. “The unprovoked attack by Turkish state security officers on peaceful American citizens was reprehensible and a grave breach of our country’s laws. That the business community in our great city recognizes that human rights must be upheld by all within our borders is a credit to their vision and conscience.”

Public policy and energy reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @howardafine