TURKEY/FILE: Turkey tells France that draft genocide bill could seriously damage economic and political ties

Turkey piled pressure on France on Friday (October 6) to drop a draft bill that would punish anyone denying an Armenian "genocide" during World War One, saying the legislation would seriously damage bilateral economic and political ties. The French parliament is due to debate the bill, proposed by the Socialist opposition, on October 12. Turkey strongly denies charges that some 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of Ottoman Turks in a systematic genocide, saying large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan conflict raging at that time. Approving the law will have very negative effects on economic ties Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan told a weekly news briefing. "There have been important investments between Turkey and France through history. With this decision these investments, built up over years, will be ruined in one (parliamentary) session. France will, in a manner of speaking, lose Turkey." Though the conservative majority in France's parliament opposes the bill, Turkey fears many opponents will not vote against it for fear of upsetting France's 400,000-strong Armenian diaspora ahead of elections next year. Tan noted that Turkey, too, faces presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007. Turkey's president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, sent a letter this week to French President Jacques Chirac on the issue and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will discuss the problem on Saturday with French businessmen in Istanbul, Tan said. France, which has already passed a law recognising the 1915 massacre as genocide, had 4.55 billion euros ($5.9 billion) of exports to Turkey last year, French Trade Ministry data show. Turkey is still stinging from comments by Chirac last weekend in the Armenian capital Yerevan that Ankara must recognise the Armenian massacres as genocide before joining the European Union. Turkey began EU entry talks last year, though is not expected to join for many years. Recognition of the Armenian 'genocide' is not a condition of its EU membership, though some other EU politicians apart from Chirac want to make it one. Ankara says it is ironic that France is preparing to punish those who express a particular view of history at a time when Turkey is under heavy EU pressure to change some of its own laws which are viewed as restricting freedom of expression.

ITN Source | October 7, 2006

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