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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Dec 23 2011
`France should drop out of Minsk group if genocide bill is ratified'
23 December 2011 / TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, ANKARA
The Turkish president has suggested France should withdraw from the
Minsk Group in case a bill approved on Thursday by the French Assembly
aiming to penalize denial of `Armenian genocide' becomes law, as he
said he regarded that president's refusal to return his calls as a
sign of his `prejudice against Turkey.'
Speaking to reporters on Friday, a day after the approval of the
highly controversial bill in the French assembly despite strong
Turkish opposition, President Abdullah Gül said France should withdraw
from the Minsk Group if the bill is approved by the Senate and becomes
law since that would mean that France has lost its impartial position
in the settling of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Azerbaijan and
Armenia. France currently co-chairs the Minsk Group, an international
initiative that has been active since the 1990s with not many
significant results so far. Gül also criticized President Nicolas
Sarkozy for `being prejudiced against Turkey.' Recalling that he has
not responded to Gül's phone calls for days, Gül complained that
`heads of state talk to each other even during war time.' He said
Sarkozy's stance reveals his prejudices against Turkey. Meanwhile,
Turkey's top officials continued to slam France following the French
National Assembly's approval of the denial bill, as Ankara urged
Turkish diplomats overseas to speak to Armenians around the world and
tell them of the foreign `instigation' that tore Turks and Armenians
apart.
Following his initial announcement of Turkey's measures against the
French on Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an
asserted that the French decision was `a clear sign of the hostility'
against Muslims in France and Europe on Friday.
`The vote in France, where there are nearly 5 million Muslims, clearly
showed that the extent of racism, discrimination and anti-Muslims
sentiments has reached dangerous levels,' ErdoÄ?an said at a conference
on `Change in Muslim Societies and Role of Women' in Ä°stanbul.
Accusing Sarkozy of `trying to win [April's presidential] elections
over hostility towards Turks and Muslims,' ErdoÄ?an was quoted by the
Anatolia news agency as saying, while he noted that Thursday's vote
was all the more meaningful in that the bill was approved with only 55
lawmakers in attendance.
The prime minister also read excerpts from a 1526 letter sent by
Ottoman Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent to French King Francis I in
response to the French king's request for help after being captured by
Spanish King Charles V during the Battle of Pavia. The Ottoman sultan
said in the letter he would help the French king, but the letter is
written in a tone that looks down upon the French King, as Sultan
Süleyman describes himself with multiple adjectives, hinting that
Francis I is only `a king.' ErdoÄ?an said he had earlier presented a
copy of Süleyman's letter to Sarkozy. `I think he did not read it,' he
said.
Ankara urges its diplomats to speak out to Armenian diaspora
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu urged Turkish ambassadors on
Friday to speak out to every single Armenian around the world and tell
them about centuries of friendship and co-existence between Armenians
and Turks and of the instigation by colonial forces, including France,
to tear the two communities apart.
`We will go and talk to every single Armenian about the 10 centuries
we lived together in peace with them; we will tell them how we were
instigated against each other by colonizers, including the French, in
the last quarter of the 20th century,' [sic] DavutoÄ?lu said, blaming
foreign intervention for causing the controversy between Turks and
Armenians regarding the events of 1915.
Addressing Turkish ambassadors serving overseas on the first day of a
week-long Foreign Ministry conference organized to conduct a
comprehensive review of Turkish foreign policy and recent developments
in international politics, DavutoÄ?lu further slammed the French
administration over the approval of the bill, saying that there was no
difference between the bill the French Parliament passed and the
Middle East dictators' actions.
`Just as the Gaddafi regime, Bin Ali regime and the Assad regime
dictated to their people what to think and what not to think, the
French parliament and leaders behind it dictated to Europeans what not
to debate,' Davutoglu said. Drawing harsh comparisons between the Arab
Spring regimes and the French legislature, DavutoÄ?lu repeated that the
bill meant that the French were `walking all over the values France
was built upon,' and lashed out at the French Parliament, saying
pressure would not work on Turkey or make it yield.' We will make our
voices heard in every place in the world. We will not yield to
pressure,' he said.
`I am appealing to European intellectuals. Protect your values. We
will keep raising our voice. We will go and say we do not recognize
[the alleged genocide] wherever this is legally forbidden. We will
raise our voice in the European Parliament. If Europeans do not
protect these values, we will,' the Turkish minister said, adding that
France was not being put to a test that would define its perception of
the world, as well as its relations with Turkey.
DavutoÄ?lu said the measures against France announced by ErdoÄ?an are
only initial measures, signaling that Ankara will introduce additional
sanctions. `We have nothing in our history to shy away from. We draw
our strength from our history,' he declared.
Turkey responds to the bill with `gradual measures'
On Thursday, following lower house approval of the bill, ErdoÄ?an
announced measures against France as `an initial step' following the
French decision, as he warned that the measures could be increased or
decreased in time, depending on the future of the denial bill at the
hands of the French legislature.`As of now, we are canceling bilateral
level political, economic and military activities,' he said. `We are
suspending all kinds of political consultations with France' and
`bilateral military co-operation and joint maneuvers are canceled as
of now.' Although ErdoÄ?an's measures did not include dropping the
level of diplomatic contact with France, Turkey's Ambassador in Paris,
Tahsin BurcuoÄ?lu, was withdrawn immediately after the vote `for
consultations for an indefinite period of time,' as Ankara warned he
would be in case of a lower house approval.
ErdoÄ?an also added that the bill was racist, discriminatory and
xenophobic and said it had opened wounds with Paris that would be
difficult to heal. Since the emergence of the denial bill voting early
in December, top Turkish officials, led by the prime minister, have
voiced their opposition to the bill that is `the product of petty
political calculations at the expense of centuries of friendship with
Turkey.'
France formally recognized the killings as genocide in 2001, but
provided no penalty for anyone denying that. The bill sets a
punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros for
those who deny or `outrageously minimize' the killings by Ottoman
Turks, putting such action on a par with denial of the Holocaust, the
AP reported.
The volume of trade between France and Turkey from January to November
this year was more than $13.5 billion, according to Turkish government
statistics. France is Turkey's fifth biggest export market and the
sixth biggest source of its imports. The French government has
stressed that the bill is not its own initiative and pointed out that
Turkey cannot impose unilateral trade sanctions due to its membership
in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and customs union of the EU.
Turkey would not be allowed to officially discriminate against France
due to its obligations born out of its international commitments, but
a public boycott is expected to target French products on shelves and
reduce French export levels significantly.
Dec 23 2011
`France should drop out of Minsk group if genocide bill is ratified'
23 December 2011 / TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, ANKARA
The Turkish president has suggested France should withdraw from the
Minsk Group in case a bill approved on Thursday by the French Assembly
aiming to penalize denial of `Armenian genocide' becomes law, as he
said he regarded that president's refusal to return his calls as a
sign of his `prejudice against Turkey.'
Speaking to reporters on Friday, a day after the approval of the
highly controversial bill in the French assembly despite strong
Turkish opposition, President Abdullah Gül said France should withdraw
from the Minsk Group if the bill is approved by the Senate and becomes
law since that would mean that France has lost its impartial position
in the settling of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Azerbaijan and
Armenia. France currently co-chairs the Minsk Group, an international
initiative that has been active since the 1990s with not many
significant results so far. Gül also criticized President Nicolas
Sarkozy for `being prejudiced against Turkey.' Recalling that he has
not responded to Gül's phone calls for days, Gül complained that
`heads of state talk to each other even during war time.' He said
Sarkozy's stance reveals his prejudices against Turkey. Meanwhile,
Turkey's top officials continued to slam France following the French
National Assembly's approval of the denial bill, as Ankara urged
Turkish diplomats overseas to speak to Armenians around the world and
tell them of the foreign `instigation' that tore Turks and Armenians
apart.
Following his initial announcement of Turkey's measures against the
French on Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an
asserted that the French decision was `a clear sign of the hostility'
against Muslims in France and Europe on Friday.
`The vote in France, where there are nearly 5 million Muslims, clearly
showed that the extent of racism, discrimination and anti-Muslims
sentiments has reached dangerous levels,' ErdoÄ?an said at a conference
on `Change in Muslim Societies and Role of Women' in Ä°stanbul.
Accusing Sarkozy of `trying to win [April's presidential] elections
over hostility towards Turks and Muslims,' ErdoÄ?an was quoted by the
Anatolia news agency as saying, while he noted that Thursday's vote
was all the more meaningful in that the bill was approved with only 55
lawmakers in attendance.
The prime minister also read excerpts from a 1526 letter sent by
Ottoman Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent to French King Francis I in
response to the French king's request for help after being captured by
Spanish King Charles V during the Battle of Pavia. The Ottoman sultan
said in the letter he would help the French king, but the letter is
written in a tone that looks down upon the French King, as Sultan
Süleyman describes himself with multiple adjectives, hinting that
Francis I is only `a king.' ErdoÄ?an said he had earlier presented a
copy of Süleyman's letter to Sarkozy. `I think he did not read it,' he
said.
Ankara urges its diplomats to speak out to Armenian diaspora
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu urged Turkish ambassadors on
Friday to speak out to every single Armenian around the world and tell
them about centuries of friendship and co-existence between Armenians
and Turks and of the instigation by colonial forces, including France,
to tear the two communities apart.
`We will go and talk to every single Armenian about the 10 centuries
we lived together in peace with them; we will tell them how we were
instigated against each other by colonizers, including the French, in
the last quarter of the 20th century,' [sic] DavutoÄ?lu said, blaming
foreign intervention for causing the controversy between Turks and
Armenians regarding the events of 1915.
Addressing Turkish ambassadors serving overseas on the first day of a
week-long Foreign Ministry conference organized to conduct a
comprehensive review of Turkish foreign policy and recent developments
in international politics, DavutoÄ?lu further slammed the French
administration over the approval of the bill, saying that there was no
difference between the bill the French Parliament passed and the
Middle East dictators' actions.
`Just as the Gaddafi regime, Bin Ali regime and the Assad regime
dictated to their people what to think and what not to think, the
French parliament and leaders behind it dictated to Europeans what not
to debate,' Davutoglu said. Drawing harsh comparisons between the Arab
Spring regimes and the French legislature, DavutoÄ?lu repeated that the
bill meant that the French were `walking all over the values France
was built upon,' and lashed out at the French Parliament, saying
pressure would not work on Turkey or make it yield.' We will make our
voices heard in every place in the world. We will not yield to
pressure,' he said.
`I am appealing to European intellectuals. Protect your values. We
will keep raising our voice. We will go and say we do not recognize
[the alleged genocide] wherever this is legally forbidden. We will
raise our voice in the European Parliament. If Europeans do not
protect these values, we will,' the Turkish minister said, adding that
France was not being put to a test that would define its perception of
the world, as well as its relations with Turkey.
DavutoÄ?lu said the measures against France announced by ErdoÄ?an are
only initial measures, signaling that Ankara will introduce additional
sanctions. `We have nothing in our history to shy away from. We draw
our strength from our history,' he declared.
Turkey responds to the bill with `gradual measures'
On Thursday, following lower house approval of the bill, ErdoÄ?an
announced measures against France as `an initial step' following the
French decision, as he warned that the measures could be increased or
decreased in time, depending on the future of the denial bill at the
hands of the French legislature.`As of now, we are canceling bilateral
level political, economic and military activities,' he said. `We are
suspending all kinds of political consultations with France' and
`bilateral military co-operation and joint maneuvers are canceled as
of now.' Although ErdoÄ?an's measures did not include dropping the
level of diplomatic contact with France, Turkey's Ambassador in Paris,
Tahsin BurcuoÄ?lu, was withdrawn immediately after the vote `for
consultations for an indefinite period of time,' as Ankara warned he
would be in case of a lower house approval.
ErdoÄ?an also added that the bill was racist, discriminatory and
xenophobic and said it had opened wounds with Paris that would be
difficult to heal. Since the emergence of the denial bill voting early
in December, top Turkish officials, led by the prime minister, have
voiced their opposition to the bill that is `the product of petty
political calculations at the expense of centuries of friendship with
Turkey.'
France formally recognized the killings as genocide in 2001, but
provided no penalty for anyone denying that. The bill sets a
punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros for
those who deny or `outrageously minimize' the killings by Ottoman
Turks, putting such action on a par with denial of the Holocaust, the
AP reported.
The volume of trade between France and Turkey from January to November
this year was more than $13.5 billion, according to Turkish government
statistics. France is Turkey's fifth biggest export market and the
sixth biggest source of its imports. The French government has
stressed that the bill is not its own initiative and pointed out that
Turkey cannot impose unilateral trade sanctions due to its membership
in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and customs union of the EU.
Turkey would not be allowed to officially discriminate against France
due to its obligations born out of its international commitments, but
a public boycott is expected to target French products on shelves and
reduce French export levels significantly.