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TURKEY WARNS FRANCE AGAINST ARMENIAN "GENOCIDE" BILL
Deutsche Presse Agentur
Dec 16 2011
Germany
Ankara - Turkey raised ths stakes against France Friday, with its
prime minister warning President Nicholas Sarkozy of 'terrible'
consequences if the French parliament passes a bill which would
punish anyone denying that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915-18
constituted 'genocide.'
Armenians say that up to 1.5 million Armenians citizens of the Ottoman
Empire were either killed or died of neglect on deportation marches
to the Syrian desert in 1915-18.
Turkey admits that some 300,000 Armenians died, but argues it was
because of unrest during the First World War when Russian forces
invaded eastern Turkey, where the bulk of the Armenians lived.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's warning, conveyed in a letter,
came two days after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu rebuked
French legislators, saying their desire to ban free debate on the
Armenian killings harked back to the Middle Ages.
'If this bill is passed, France will lead the return of a medieval
mentality to Europe,' Davutoglu told Turkish legislators.
However, the bill is widely supported in France's National Assembly
and is expected to pass when it goes to the vote on December 22.
France has half a million citizens of Armenian origin, and is holding
legislative and presidential elections in next year.
A delegation of five members of Turkey's parliament is flying to
Paris on Sunday to lobby their French counterparts against the bill.
An immediate consequence of the bill's approval will be the recall
of Turkey's ambassador and the freezing of Turkish-French relations,
a spokesman for the Turkish Embassy in Paris, Engin Solakoglu, told
the Hurriyet Daily News.
Erdogan wrote to Sarkozy that if the bill is passed, 'the result
will be terrible for the multi-faceted relations between Turkey and
France - on the political, economic, cultural levels and, in fact,
on every level,' the semi-official Anatolian Agency reported.
Turkey and France have an annual bilateral trade of 10.5 billion
dollars, and there are 1,000 French companies operating in Turkey.
Erdogan reminded Sarkozy, who came to Ankara in February, that the
French leader had once said he had no intention of allowing a bill
on the Armenian issue to become law.
Turkish-French relations should not be held hostage by the demands
of third parties, the prime minister said in his letter, referring
to France's Armenian community.
Advocates of the French bill argue it is hate speech to deny that
the 1915-18 killings constitute 'genocide', and that hate speech is
beyond freedom of expression.
Turkey maintains that an equal number of Muslim Turks died in the
fighting.
Turkey denies the Armenian killings were a case of genocide, saying
there was no systematic policy to kill Armenians. But Armenians
hold that the killings and deportation marches were ordered by the
government, and that the sheer number of deaths amounts to genocide.
In 2009, Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement known as the Zurich
Protocols under which they promised to normalise their relations, open
their common border, and set up an independent historical commission to
investigate whether the events of 1915-18 constituted genocide or not.
But the protocols have never been ratified as they fell foul of the
dispute between the two countries over Armenia's support for the
separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan -
a close ally of Turkey.
In a press conference for French journalists on Thursday, delegation
leader Volkan Bozkir, a former Turkish ambassador and chairman of
the parliament's foreign affairs committee, said it was regrettable
that the Armenian issue always emerged when France was on the verge
of elections.
There is a small but growing number of Turkish intellectuals who
believe that the Armenians were killed deliberately. Two years ago
about 150 academics, columnists and writers signed a petition in
which they apologised to Armenians for the 1915-18 killings.
Furthermore, a book on the killings, A Shameful Act, by the Turkish
historian Taner Akcham, concludes they did amount to genocide, and
is sold in mainstream bookshops in Ankara and Istanbul.
Deutsche Presse Agentur
Dec 16 2011
Germany
Ankara - Turkey raised ths stakes against France Friday, with its
prime minister warning President Nicholas Sarkozy of 'terrible'
consequences if the French parliament passes a bill which would
punish anyone denying that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915-18
constituted 'genocide.'
Armenians say that up to 1.5 million Armenians citizens of the Ottoman
Empire were either killed or died of neglect on deportation marches
to the Syrian desert in 1915-18.
Turkey admits that some 300,000 Armenians died, but argues it was
because of unrest during the First World War when Russian forces
invaded eastern Turkey, where the bulk of the Armenians lived.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's warning, conveyed in a letter,
came two days after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu rebuked
French legislators, saying their desire to ban free debate on the
Armenian killings harked back to the Middle Ages.
'If this bill is passed, France will lead the return of a medieval
mentality to Europe,' Davutoglu told Turkish legislators.
However, the bill is widely supported in France's National Assembly
and is expected to pass when it goes to the vote on December 22.
France has half a million citizens of Armenian origin, and is holding
legislative and presidential elections in next year.
A delegation of five members of Turkey's parliament is flying to
Paris on Sunday to lobby their French counterparts against the bill.
An immediate consequence of the bill's approval will be the recall
of Turkey's ambassador and the freezing of Turkish-French relations,
a spokesman for the Turkish Embassy in Paris, Engin Solakoglu, told
the Hurriyet Daily News.
Erdogan wrote to Sarkozy that if the bill is passed, 'the result
will be terrible for the multi-faceted relations between Turkey and
France - on the political, economic, cultural levels and, in fact,
on every level,' the semi-official Anatolian Agency reported.
Turkey and France have an annual bilateral trade of 10.5 billion
dollars, and there are 1,000 French companies operating in Turkey.
Erdogan reminded Sarkozy, who came to Ankara in February, that the
French leader had once said he had no intention of allowing a bill
on the Armenian issue to become law.
Turkish-French relations should not be held hostage by the demands
of third parties, the prime minister said in his letter, referring
to France's Armenian community.
Advocates of the French bill argue it is hate speech to deny that
the 1915-18 killings constitute 'genocide', and that hate speech is
beyond freedom of expression.
Turkey maintains that an equal number of Muslim Turks died in the
fighting.
Turkey denies the Armenian killings were a case of genocide, saying
there was no systematic policy to kill Armenians. But Armenians
hold that the killings and deportation marches were ordered by the
government, and that the sheer number of deaths amounts to genocide.
In 2009, Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement known as the Zurich
Protocols under which they promised to normalise their relations, open
their common border, and set up an independent historical commission to
investigate whether the events of 1915-18 constituted genocide or not.
But the protocols have never been ratified as they fell foul of the
dispute between the two countries over Armenia's support for the
separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan -
a close ally of Turkey.
In a press conference for French journalists on Thursday, delegation
leader Volkan Bozkir, a former Turkish ambassador and chairman of
the parliament's foreign affairs committee, said it was regrettable
that the Armenian issue always emerged when France was on the verge
of elections.
There is a small but growing number of Turkish intellectuals who
believe that the Armenians were killed deliberately. Two years ago
about 150 academics, columnists and writers signed a petition in
which they apologised to Armenians for the 1915-18 killings.
Furthermore, a book on the killings, A Shameful Act, by the Turkish
historian Taner Akcham, concludes they did amount to genocide, and
is sold in mainstream bookshops in Ankara and Istanbul.