Zaman Online, Turkey
May 14 2006

French Company Trading with Turkey Warns France Against Genocide Bill

By Erkan Acar, Marseilles
Published: Sunday, May 14, 2006
zaman.com

Tension between Turkey and France is mounting over a bill to
criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide due for discussion in the
French Parliament on March 18.

French companies with commercial ties with Turkey are most concerned
over the escalation tensions between the two countries.

French companies are expending every effort to persuade French
parliamentarians to vote against the bill that they fear will cause
them to suffer immeasurable commercial losses from future embargoes
imposed by Turkey, as the bill is chiefly designed to win Armenian
votes.

The De Villepin administration received a strong warning over the
Armenian bill from Eurocopter, one of the world’s largest helicopter
manufacturers with French partners, as the company fears losing a
contract to supply attack helicopters to the Turkish military late
this summer.

Fabrice Breiger, chief executive of Eurocopter, pointed to the
temporary nature of the crises that will eventually be overcome by
ties of friendship between the two countries:

`I am not a politician; I am the manager of an international company.
But that does not necessarily mean that I am not familiar with news
articles; it also does not imply that company managers cannot form
ideas about what is going on outside. As European industrialists, we
conveyed the necessary messages to European countries.’

Turkey had planned to buy attack and exploration helicopters for its
fight against terrorism, as part of the ATAK Project launched in
1996.

The Project, expected to cost $1.5 billion, was delayed for five
years and the previous tender was cancelled during a Defense Industry
Executive Commission meeting in May 2004.

After the cancellation of the tender, studies began in search of a
new model that aimed at meeting the military’s needs in a shorter
time and make more cost effective use of Turkey’s domestic capacity.

For this purpose, a new tender invitation was released on 10 February
2005.

Several defense companies applied to participate in the tender that
closed in December 2005.

Those companies include: Eurocopter with the Tiger helicopter, the
Italian Agusta company with the A-129 Mangusta, Russia’s
Rosoboronexport with the MI-28 Havoc, and the South African Denel
Company with the CSH-2 Rooivalk helicopter.