BBC News

Monday, 25 April, 2005, 04:26 GMT 05:26 UK

European press review

[Excerpt]

Turkey’s EU woes

With Turkey’s bid for EU membership being a major EU referendum issue,
Paris’ Le Monde notes that President Jacques Chirac, for the first
time in his ten years in office, attended a ceremony held in Paris by
the Armenian community to mark the 90th anniversary of what the paper
calls the 1915 “genocide” of Armenians by Turkish troops.

President Chirac, it remarks, “was accompanied by the President of
Armenia, Robert Kocharian, who chose the symbolic date to spend a few
days in France”.

[Caption: “Turkey must admit that certain things are non-negotiable” –
Liberation]

Liberation also considers the significance of the occasion, saying
that “remembrance of this dark episode has a bearing on Europe because
the anniversary has come up during the referendum campaign”.

“In putting forward its bid for EU membership,” it argues, “Turkey
must admit that certain things are non-negotiable”.

The paper points out that in the process of building Europe other EU
members have owned up to past misdeeds, and therefore asking the Turks
to do the same towards the Armenians is merely “to treat them like
everyone else, as they themselves have demanded”.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress