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Erdogan Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocid

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  • Erdogan Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocid

    December 23, 2011

    Turkey's Leader Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocide

    By DAN BILEFSKY


    ISTANBUL - In a deepening diplomatic rupture, Prime Minister Recep
    Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey accused France on Friday of genocide against
    Algerians in the period of French colonial rule, one day after France
    made it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks.

    `Approximately 15 percent of the population in Algeria have been
    subjected to a massacre by the French starting from 1945,' Mr. Erdogan
    said of the French dominion, which ended in 1962. `This is genocide.'

    Mr. Erdogan's sharp remarks seemed to severely dent Turkey's already
    fraught talks on joining the European Union. But more immediately,
    they underscored concerns both at home and abroad that Turkey's
    expansive new sense of self-confidence - buttressed by its emerging
    role as a leader in the Middle East - might be tipping into arrogance,
    threatening to alienate allies and foes at a critical time.

    Turkey halted diplomatic consultations and military dealings with
    France on Thursday after the lower house of the French Parliament
    backed the bill, which would impose a fine of about $58,700 and a year
    in jail for those who deny the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians
    between 1915 and 1918. Turkish lawmakers also called on France to
    investigate its own atrocities in Algeria.

    Turkey faces a raft of foreign-policy challenges on its doorstep, any
    one of which could derail its long-term goal of obtaining regional
    power status. France, a powerful member of the European Union, has
    played a leading role in thwarting Turkey's efforts to join the group,
    so the latest clash is likely to harden French attitudes even more.

    An increasingly outsize national ego, analysts say, had already helped
    to fray ties with Europe. With talks to join the union hopelessly
    stalled, many of Turkey's 79 million people have greeted the euro
    crisis with barely concealed glee, saying Europe has rejected them
    because they are Muslim.

    Closer to home, three of the most volatile states in the world -
    Syria, Iraq and Iran - are lined up along Turkey's southern and
    eastern borders. Syria is already in a state of civil war, and Iraq
    seems to be flirting once again with sectarian strife and dissolution.
    Throw in an alienated Kurdish minority combined with an Iran that
    erupted in 2009 and is now struggling with economic sanctions and
    inflation, and the possibilities of regional destabilization, mass
    refugee flows and even war do not seem terribly remote.

    Facing such threats, analysts and diplomats say, Turkey needs to
    resist the temptation to gloat and swagger. Soli Ozel, professor of
    international relations at Istanbul's Kadir Has University, said that
    European and American economic decline, coupled with the Arab Spring,
    were magnifying Turkey's sense of its own importance as it evolves
    into the model of democracy for the Arab world.

    `Turks are saying, `We are now on the rise, you are running out of
    steam and we don't have to take any nonsense from Westerners,'' he
    said. But he added, `There is a fine line between self-confidence and
    hubris.'

    Turkey and its charismatic prime minister, Mr. Erdogan, could be
    forgiven for displaying some vanity. He has overhauled a country once
    haunted by military coups into a regional democratic powerhouse. He is
    so popular in the Arab world that there has been a surge in babies
    named Tayyip.

    While Turkey's economy surges - growing by 8.2 percent in the third
    quarter, second only to China - Europe is sputtering and Greece, a
    longtime rival, has been flattened by the sovereign debt crisis. With
    its new clout as a leader in a region long dominated by the United
    States, Turkey has also been basking in its roles as the voice of
    regional indignation against Syria and the chief critic of Israel.

    Earlier this month a deputy prime minister boldly lectured Vice
    President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that it was Turkey, and not the
    struggling economies of the United States and Europe, that would win
    the 21st century.

    `The fast fish, not the big fish, eats the small fish,' said the
    official, Ali Babacan, who oversees the economy. Challenging his
    host's boastful tone, Mr. Biden reminded the audience that in a sea of
    young sharks, the United States was still the whale.

    Six years ago, Burak Turna, a Turkish writer, was mocked here as a
    literary shock jock after he wrote a futuristic novel in which Turkish
    commandos besiege Berlin, lay waste to Europe and take control of the
    Continent. Now, he says, the same people who once dismissed him are
    celebrating him. `There is a new air being pumped into the Turkish
    consciousness,' he said. But, he warned, `We shouldn't be too brave or
    overconfident.'

    Indeed, for all of Turkey's recent achievements, its aim of having
    `zero problems' with its neighbors has shown few successes.

    Turkish officials tried in vain for months to persuade President
    Bashar al-Assad of Syria to halt his violent crackdown against
    civilians, before finally turning against him. Turkey has been unable
    to resolve conflicts with Cyprus and Armenia. Its recent decision to
    host a NATO radar installation has rankled Iran. Relations with Israel
    collapsed after Israeli troops killed nine people aboard a Turkish
    flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

    In September, the limits of Turkey's appeal as a political model were
    laid bare when Mr. Erdogan told the Egyptian satellite channel Dream
    TV that secularism was not the enemy of religion and that Egypt should
    embrace a secular constitution. A spokesman for Egypt's Muslim
    Brotherhood, which won first-round parliamentary elections there, told
    the Egyptian daily Al Ahram that Mr. Erdogan was interfering in
    Egyptian affairs. (Mr. Erdogan's aides said the term secularism had
    been mistranslated as atheism.)

    Nor were many Kosovar Albanians amused in August when Turkey's
    minister of education, Omer Dincer, asked his Kosovo counterpart to
    alter offending paragraphs from history textbooks, which he said
    insulted the Ottoman Turks. Local historians protested that Turkey was
    trying to whitewash centuries of Ottoman subjugation.

    The perils of standing in Turkey's way became abundantly clear at the
    United Nations during the annual General Assembly meeting of world
    leaders this fall.

    Mr. Erdogan was on the fourth floor of the General Assembly hall when
    he learned that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whom he
    ardently supports, was making his address demanding full United
    Nations membership for Palestine. When Mr. Erdogan rushed to the
    nearest entrance to take Turkey's seat on the main floor, a security
    guard refused to let him pass. When Mr. Erdogan pressed forward, a
    loud scuffle erupted that was audible four flours below.

    One Western diplomat noted that `the Turks were literally throwing
    their weight around.'

    Yet Turkey's many defenders say the West cannot expect Turkey to play
    regional leader and then criticize it when it flexes its muscles.
    Moreover, they note, the country is entitled to defend its dignity.

    At the summit meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Cannes,
    France, in November, cameras showed Mr. Erdogan suddenly kneeling down
    when he noticed a sticker of the Turkish flag on the floor to mark the
    position where he was supposed to stand for a group photo, near
    President Obama.

    He gently folded it and put it in his pocket.

    Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/world/europe/turkey-lashes-out-over-french-bill-about-genocide.html

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