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TURKISH PM SAYS FRENCH REASON IN 'ECLIPSE' OVER GENOCIDE BILL
Agence France Presse -- English
October 10, 2006 Tuesday
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired a broadside at
France Tuesday in a mounting row over a draft law on the massacres
of Armenians under Ottoman rule, calling the bill the product of "an
eclipse of reason" and urging Paris to rethink its own colonial past.
"We expect Paris to avoid this blunder, this political accident that
will harm Turkish-French relations," Erdogan told the parliamentary
group of his Justice and Development Party in a speech interrupted
by applause.
"The EU must absolutely take a stand against this eclipse of reason
in France," he said.
Erdogan rejected suggestions by some Turkish lawmakers for Ankara
to retaliate, if the bill is voted, with a similar law making it a
crime to deny that the killings of tens of thousands of Algerians
under French colonial rule amounted to genocide.
"No, we will not retaliate in kind -- we do not clean filth with
filth," he said, but he urged the bill's backers to closely examine
their own past.
"Those vehicles of of slander and lies should look at their own
past... Let them look at what happened in Algeria between 1954 and
1962," he said.
The French bill, to be debated and voted at the National Assembly
on Thursday, calls for one year in prison and a 45,000-euro
(57,000-dollar) fine for denying that Armenians were the victims of
genocide during World War I.
Erdogan said the bill will prevent free debate on a historical subject
and violate freedom of expression, a basic EU norm that Turkey itself
is under pressure to respect.
But he said the bill would not discourage Turkey from pursuing its
bid to join the European Union.
"Minor snags will not deter us from pursuing our major goals... Work
on our EU (membership) process continues unabated," he said.
Ankara has warned France that it will be barred from potentially
lucrative economic projects in Turkey, including a planned nuclear
power plant, if the bill is adopted.
In a 2001 resolution, France recognized the Armenian massacres as
genocide, prompting Ankara to sideline French companies from public
tenders and cancel several projects awarded to French firms.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917.
Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000 Armenians
and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians seeking
independence in eastern Anatolia sided with invading Russian troops
as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.
Agence France Presse -- English
October 10, 2006 Tuesday
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired a broadside at
France Tuesday in a mounting row over a draft law on the massacres
of Armenians under Ottoman rule, calling the bill the product of "an
eclipse of reason" and urging Paris to rethink its own colonial past.
"We expect Paris to avoid this blunder, this political accident that
will harm Turkish-French relations," Erdogan told the parliamentary
group of his Justice and Development Party in a speech interrupted
by applause.
"The EU must absolutely take a stand against this eclipse of reason
in France," he said.
Erdogan rejected suggestions by some Turkish lawmakers for Ankara
to retaliate, if the bill is voted, with a similar law making it a
crime to deny that the killings of tens of thousands of Algerians
under French colonial rule amounted to genocide.
"No, we will not retaliate in kind -- we do not clean filth with
filth," he said, but he urged the bill's backers to closely examine
their own past.
"Those vehicles of of slander and lies should look at their own
past... Let them look at what happened in Algeria between 1954 and
1962," he said.
The French bill, to be debated and voted at the National Assembly
on Thursday, calls for one year in prison and a 45,000-euro
(57,000-dollar) fine for denying that Armenians were the victims of
genocide during World War I.
Erdogan said the bill will prevent free debate on a historical subject
and violate freedom of expression, a basic EU norm that Turkey itself
is under pressure to respect.
But he said the bill would not discourage Turkey from pursuing its
bid to join the European Union.
"Minor snags will not deter us from pursuing our major goals... Work
on our EU (membership) process continues unabated," he said.
Ankara has warned France that it will be barred from potentially
lucrative economic projects in Turkey, including a planned nuclear
power plant, if the bill is adopted.
In a 2001 resolution, France recognized the Armenian massacres as
genocide, prompting Ankara to sideline French companies from public
tenders and cancel several projects awarded to French firms.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917.
Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000 Armenians
and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians seeking
independence in eastern Anatolia sided with invading Russian troops
as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.