Tweet
TURKEY NO ELECTION TOOL, ANKARA TELLS FRENCH RIVALS
Hurriyet, Turkey
Oct 10 2011
French President Nicolas Sarkozy (R)welcomes Turkey's Prime minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Elysee palace on July 13, 2008 in Paris.
In the view of upcoming presidential elections, the Ankara government
has urged French politicians not to use Turkey as a tool in their
campaigns following both French President Nicholas Sarkozy and
prominent Socialist candidate Francois Hollande exploiting the Armenian
"genocide" claims last week.
Turkey's Ambassador to Paris Tahsin Burcuoglu expressed Ankara's
uneasiness with Sarkozy's remarks in a meeting with the French
President's foreign policy advisor Jean-David Levitte on Saturday.
Burcuoglu sent a letter to Hollande urging him to avoid making Turkey a
daily domestic political issue after the prominent socialist candidate
promised backing the draft of a law criminalizing denial of Armenian
genocide, the Hurriyet Daily News learned.
"The message we have conveyed does not solely refer to Sarkozy, but
to the entire French political class," a senior Turkish diplomat told
the Hurriyet Daily News yesterday.
"We have underlined that this kind of rhetoric does not serve anything
other than to ruin our bilateral relations. We want to improve our
relations, but these statements are not helpful to this end." Up
to 400,000 French citizens of Armenian descent reside in France and
comprise an influential political group. Sarkozy, who risks losing his
seat to Socialists, visited Armenia last week from where he threatened
Turkey to recognize the killings of Armenians during the World War I
at the hands of Ottoman Empire as genocide before his presidential
mandate expires next May or he would adopt a law criminalizing the
denial of genocide. "We know all French politicians are making similar
statements, but Sarkozy was very careless in doing so as he tried to
threaten Turkey just a few steps away from our soil," the diplomat
said. Levitte tried to depict Sarkozy's words as candid advice from
a friendly country. Burcuoglu rejected the comparison, saying that
Algeria was a French colony at the time whereas the incidents of 1915
took place within the country's own sovereign territory. Turkey imposed
economic sanctions on France in the past after Paris recognized the
Armenian genocide.
Hurriyet, Turkey
Oct 10 2011
French President Nicolas Sarkozy (R)welcomes Turkey's Prime minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Elysee palace on July 13, 2008 in Paris.
In the view of upcoming presidential elections, the Ankara government
has urged French politicians not to use Turkey as a tool in their
campaigns following both French President Nicholas Sarkozy and
prominent Socialist candidate Francois Hollande exploiting the Armenian
"genocide" claims last week.
Turkey's Ambassador to Paris Tahsin Burcuoglu expressed Ankara's
uneasiness with Sarkozy's remarks in a meeting with the French
President's foreign policy advisor Jean-David Levitte on Saturday.
Burcuoglu sent a letter to Hollande urging him to avoid making Turkey a
daily domestic political issue after the prominent socialist candidate
promised backing the draft of a law criminalizing denial of Armenian
genocide, the Hurriyet Daily News learned.
"The message we have conveyed does not solely refer to Sarkozy, but
to the entire French political class," a senior Turkish diplomat told
the Hurriyet Daily News yesterday.
"We have underlined that this kind of rhetoric does not serve anything
other than to ruin our bilateral relations. We want to improve our
relations, but these statements are not helpful to this end." Up
to 400,000 French citizens of Armenian descent reside in France and
comprise an influential political group. Sarkozy, who risks losing his
seat to Socialists, visited Armenia last week from where he threatened
Turkey to recognize the killings of Armenians during the World War I
at the hands of Ottoman Empire as genocide before his presidential
mandate expires next May or he would adopt a law criminalizing the
denial of genocide. "We know all French politicians are making similar
statements, but Sarkozy was very careless in doing so as he tried to
threaten Turkey just a few steps away from our soil," the diplomat
said. Levitte tried to depict Sarkozy's words as candid advice from
a friendly country. Burcuoglu rejected the comparison, saying that
Algeria was a French colony at the time whereas the incidents of 1915
took place within the country's own sovereign territory. Turkey imposed
economic sanctions on France in the past after Paris recognized the
Armenian genocide.