TURKEY: Turkish Prime Minister warns France against passing Armenian genocide bill and French parliamentarians remain divided on the issue

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday (October 10) called on France to look to its own colonial past in Africa instead of attacking Turkey over the alleged genocide of Armenians during World War I. "Some of our friends say 'France did it like this, we should also do the same too.' But we are not like those who clean dirt with dirt. We are those who clean dirt with clean water," Erdogan told parliament members on Tuesday. Turks are up in arms over a French bill, proposed by the Socialist opposition, that will be debated in parliament on October 12. If approved, the law would make it a crime to deny the genocide of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks. Ankara denies charges that 1.5 million Armenians perished in a genocide, saying large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan conflict raging at that time. Though the conservative majority in France's parliament opposes the bill, EU-applicant 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. Last year, Erdogan proposed a joint commission of Turkish and Armenian historians to examine what really happened during World War I. Armenia did not accept the proposal. Recognition of the Armenian 'genocide' is not a condition of its EU membership, though some leading EU politicians including French President Jacques Chirac have suggested it should be. The Turkish government warned that such a law would severely damaged Franco-Turkish economic and political ties. "A wrong step which will be taken on the 12th of the month will not change anything for Turkey but it will change a lot of things for France," he added. Bilateral trade between the two countries amounted to nearly $10 billion in 2005. A Turkish-Armenian editor sentenced to jail in Turkey in a key human rights case said on Tuesday (October 10) that he was ready to go to prison in France in defence of the right to speak freely about claims of an Armenian genocide. "We should not be a pawn for the irrational attitude between the two states. I am being sued in Turkey because I said that there was genocide -- which is my own belief -- but I will go to France to protest against this madness and violate the (new French) law if I see it necessary and I will commit the crime to be prosecuted there," Dink told Reuters in an interview. A Turkish court recently gave Dink a suspended six-month jail sentence for referring in an article to an Armenian nationalist idea of ethnic purity without Turkish blood. French parliamentarians were divided on Tuesday (October 10) on the proposed bill making it a crime to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide. "This proposed bill completes the vote by the French parliament in 2001 over a law which recognises the Armenian genocide. It's not a law against Turkey, against the Turkish people, absolutely not. The purpose of this law is to look with clear-sightedness at our common history. I say common history because France, after 1915, welcomed a great number of Armenians who took refuge in France and who are now French citizens and are proud of being French, who fought against Nazism in France. So we are also addressing these citizens by understanding their suffering and their pain. But that does not necessarily mean that we are making the Turkish state guilty. Every nation has to take a close look at its own past," said Jean-Marc Ayrault, president of the socialist group at the National Assembly that proposed the bill. Alain Marsaud of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), however, called the bill "unnecessary" and "dangerous." "It's an unnecessary law and a dangerous law from a historical point of view. Effectively, the law will make it permissible to revisit all of history and all the parliamentarians worldwide will be tempted to examine history not only in their country but also in some other neighbouring countries or even in the history of hostile countries. I think that we are heading towards a dangerous plan. I think that the Socialists are trying to trap the UMP and I'm afraid that it's going to snap shut on us. So, we must be a bit courageous in this affair," Marsaud told Reuters. Nicolas Sarkozy, conservative frontrunner for the presidential race and a long-standing opponent of Turkey's EU entry, said he had set out conditions for avoiding a vote in a telephone call with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan, last Sunday (October 8) criticised the bill and Turkish lawmakers warned last week that illegal Armenian immigrants in Turkey may be expelled and French trade hurt if the measure were passed. But Armenian activists in France remain unfazed. "We are not looking for revenge. We are looking for justice and justice is achieved through the expression of truth. Turkey must acknowledge, the Turkish state must acknowledge, what happened. And the least it can do, is ask for forgiveness," said Ara Toranian, Director of the Paris-based Magazine "Nouvelles d'Armenie".

ITN Source | October 11, 2006

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