ISN, Switzerland
Dec 14 2004

Turkey EU bid threatened by genocide past

European Community ISN SECURITY WATCH (14/12/04) – France has added
another condition for Turkey’s eventual membership in the EU,
demanding that Ankara recognize the mass killing of Armenians in
1915. EU ministers gathered yesterday for a foreign ministers meeting
in Brussels to prepare the next summit of heads of state, where
members will decide on the club’s next wave of enlargement by setting
dates for membership talks for Turkey and Croatia and confirming
Bulgaria and Romania’s membership by 2007. Speaking after the
meeting, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said his country
would raise the question of the massacre, when up to 1.5 million
Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turkish forces. `I think that
Turkey, as a big country, has a duty to remember. I believe that when
the time comes, Turkey should come to terms with its past, be
reconciled with its own history, and recognize this tragedy,’ Barnier
told reporters. He said France’s demand was not a condition for
opening membership negotiations with Turkey, which are expected to
begin next year, but warned that the issue would be raised once talks
were officially opened. Armenians say 1.5 million of their people
died in an Ottoman Empire campaign to force them from eastern Turkey
between 1915 and 1923. Turkish authorities refuse to recognize the
1915 massacre as genocide, saying Armenians were killed or displaced
only as the Ottoman Empire tried to quell civil unrest. Armenia has
asked Turkey to apologize as a condition for establishing diplomatic
relations. France officially recognized the Armenian genocide in
2001, and is now coming under pressure from Armenians living in
France to raise the issue with Turkey, just ahead of EU membership
bid talks. Turkey signed the association agreement for EU membership
in 1963, and it is expected that a two-day EU summit this week will
finally decide to begin formal membership talks. At the summit, which
begins on Thursday and Friday, leaders must also decide exactly when
negotiations will be opened. EU sources told ISN Security Watch today
that negotiations would most likely begin in the second half of 2005,
but that the talks would not guarantee EU membership in the end. In
France, a large section of the population is against Turkish
membership, and a referendum will be held on whether to accept Turkey
in the EU. Recent polls show that a majority of citizens in Germany
and Austria are also against Turkey’s EU membership. In other news,
foreign ministers yesterday said Croatia would be given the green
light to start entry talks with Brussels, provided the EU decided it
was satisfied with the country’s level of cooperation with the UN war
crimes tribunal in the Hague. `Negotiations could be opened around
April 2005, when the Council anticipates that Croatia will fully
cooperate with the [International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia] ICTY,’ Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country
holds the EU presidency, said at a press conference. Retired Croatian
Army General Ante Gotovina, accused by the ICTY of massacring Serb
civilians during the 1992-1995 Balkan wars, is the remaining obstacle
impeding Croatia’s EU entry talks. Authorities in Zagreb have
repeatedly said they were not informed of his whereabouts, while ICTY
officials have suggested otherwise. Some EU member countries have
raised doubts about Croatia’s claims of ignorance with regard to
Gotovina’s whereabouts, and have been pushing other member states not
to fix a date for the talks, until Zagreb prove its full cooperation
with the UN tribunal regarding the fugitive general. (By Ekrem
Krasniqi in Brussels)