TURKEY: ERDOGAN TO DISCUSS ARMENIAN ISSUE WITH CHIRAC

Reporter, Greece
May 11 2006

11:43 – 11 May 2006 – I believe France will not let this virus
infiltrate our relations,’ Prime Minister Erdoðan says, while
describing a bill that criminalizes denial of an alleged Armenian
genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire last century as a ‘virus’.

A report coming from Paris yesterday on the rejection of a bill by a
parliamentary commission has pleased Ankara, with Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan expressing hope that common sense would eventually win
out over the bill as Turkey has repeatedly warned that the bill’s
adoption could cause serious damage to bilateral relations between
the two countries.

Speaking to reporters at the airport ahead of his departure for
Vienna, where he will attend the three-day 4th European Union-Latin
America/Caribbean Summit at the invitation of his Austrian counterpart,
Wolfgang Schuessel, Erdoðan said he believed common sense would
eventually win out as French-Turkish relations were not “ordinary
bilateral relations.”

The prime minister described the bill criminalizing any denial of the
Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire last century —
an allegation that is categorically denied by the Turkish Republic —
as a “virus.”

“I believe France will not let this virus infiltrate our relations,”
Erdoðan said, while also mentioning the fact that investments by
French companies in Turkey top the list of foreign investment.

Referring to a meeting he held on Tuesday with a group of senior
directors of French companies doing business in Turkey, Erdoðan
said the Turkish government and those directors shared a common view
concerning the bill: that French-Turkish relations are so strong they
cannot be victimized by such a bill.

Also yesterday, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Denis Simonneau
apparently felt the need to publicly express his country’s
“attentiveness” regarding Ankara’s anger over the bill.

Erdoðan said he would meet with French President Jacques Chirac
in Vienna.

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