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SARKOZY MOVES ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL
By Swaha Pattanaik
Independent Online, South Africa
Oct 9 2006
Paris - French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday set three
conditions for Turkey to avoid a vote by French deputies on a bill
making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide at the hands
of Ottoman Turks.
Parliament, dominated by the Union for a Popular Movement that Sarkozy
leads, is due on Thursday to discuss an opposition Socialist bill on
Armenian deaths during World War One.
Turkey strongly denies the 1,5 million deaths constitute genocide.
Though the conservative majority in parliament opposes the bill, Turkey
fears many opponents will vote for the bill for fear of upsetting
France's 400 000-strong Armenian diaspora ahead of presidential and
parliamentary elections next year.
Sarkozy, conservative frontrunner for the presidential race and
a long-standing opponent of Turkey's EU entry, said he had set out
conditions for avoiding a vote in a telephone call with Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan.
"The first is that there is a bilateral commission between Armenia and
Turkey which has equal representation, so that these two countries can
conduct the work of acknowledging history," he told France Inter radio.
"The second condition is that Turkey reopen its borders with Armenia.
And the third condition is that Turkey gives up its penal law which
forbids people speaking of the genocide in Turkey."
He said he was not sure whether he had convinced Erdogan but added
that the Turkish premier had taken note of them.
Erdogan on Sunday criticised the bill and Turkish lawmakers warned
last week that illegal Armenian immigrants in Turkey may be expelled
and French trade hurt if the measure were passed.
Ankara strongly denies estimates that 1,5 million Armenians perished
at the hands of Ottoman Turks in a systematic genocide, saying large
numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan
conflict raging at that time.
Sarkozy also said Turkey was not guaranteed EU entry even if it
accepted calls for it to admit Armenians suffered genocide.
President Jacques Chirac has suggested recognition of the Armenian
"genocide" should be a condition of Turkish EU entry, but Sarkozy
said this would not be a sufficient condition.
"For me it is not a precondition to enter Europe. Because, to enter
Europe, the fact that a country has a duty to acknowledge its history,
as Germany did, is the minimum," Sarkozy told France Inter radio.
"But it is not because one does one's duty of acknowledging one's
history that one has the right to enter Europe."
Sarkozy, who says the European Union cannot expand indefinitely
and must have fixed borders, again criticised Ankara for failing to
properly recognise EU member Cyprus because of a dispute over the
divided island.
Turkey began its EU entry talks last year, though is not expected to
join for many years.
By Swaha Pattanaik
Independent Online, South Africa
Oct 9 2006
Paris - French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday set three
conditions for Turkey to avoid a vote by French deputies on a bill
making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide at the hands
of Ottoman Turks.
Parliament, dominated by the Union for a Popular Movement that Sarkozy
leads, is due on Thursday to discuss an opposition Socialist bill on
Armenian deaths during World War One.
Turkey strongly denies the 1,5 million deaths constitute genocide.
Though the conservative majority in parliament opposes the bill, Turkey
fears many opponents will vote for the bill for fear of upsetting
France's 400 000-strong Armenian diaspora ahead of presidential and
parliamentary elections next year.
Sarkozy, conservative frontrunner for the presidential race and
a long-standing opponent of Turkey's EU entry, said he had set out
conditions for avoiding a vote in a telephone call with Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan.
"The first is that there is a bilateral commission between Armenia and
Turkey which has equal representation, so that these two countries can
conduct the work of acknowledging history," he told France Inter radio.
"The second condition is that Turkey reopen its borders with Armenia.
And the third condition is that Turkey gives up its penal law which
forbids people speaking of the genocide in Turkey."
He said he was not sure whether he had convinced Erdogan but added
that the Turkish premier had taken note of them.
Erdogan on Sunday criticised the bill and Turkish lawmakers warned
last week that illegal Armenian immigrants in Turkey may be expelled
and French trade hurt if the measure were passed.
Ankara strongly denies estimates that 1,5 million Armenians perished
at the hands of Ottoman Turks in a systematic genocide, saying large
numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan
conflict raging at that time.
Sarkozy also said Turkey was not guaranteed EU entry even if it
accepted calls for it to admit Armenians suffered genocide.
President Jacques Chirac has suggested recognition of the Armenian
"genocide" should be a condition of Turkish EU entry, but Sarkozy
said this would not be a sufficient condition.
"For me it is not a precondition to enter Europe. Because, to enter
Europe, the fact that a country has a duty to acknowledge its history,
as Germany did, is the minimum," Sarkozy told France Inter radio.
"But it is not because one does one's duty of acknowledging one's
history that one has the right to enter Europe."
Sarkozy, who says the European Union cannot expand indefinitely
and must have fixed borders, again criticised Ankara for failing to
properly recognise EU member Cyprus because of a dispute over the
divided island.
Turkey began its EU entry talks last year, though is not expected to
join for many years.