ARMENIAN-FRENCH GROUP ACCUSES TURKEY OF BLACKMAILING FRENCH LEGISLATORS INTO OPPOSING BILL
AP Worldstream
May 15, 2006
An umbrella group accused Turkey of trying to blackmail French
lawmakers into opposing proposed legislation making it a crime to
deny that the killings of Armenians in World War I was genocide.
The Council of Coordination of Armenian Organizations in France said
Ankara was trying to exert pressure on France with letter-writing
campaigns to French lawmakers and threats of an economic boycott.
On Thursday, the French National Assembly is set to consider a bill,
presented by the opposition Socialists, that would make it a crime to
deny the Armenian genocide of 1915. It is already a crime in France
to deny the Holocaust.
Last week, Turkey briefly recalled its ambassador to France in protest,
and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told French corporate
leaders that the bill would damage bilateral ties.
“The Armenian genocide: Turkey’s unacceptable blackmail,” the council
said in a statement.
Turkey also complained recently about a resolution adopted by Canada’s
parliament that recognizes the killings as genocide.
The French Foreign Ministry said last week France was “very attentive”
to Turkish authorities’ concerns.
Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed as the Ottoman
Empire forced them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923 _ and
that it was a deliberate campaign of genocide by Turkey’s rulers.
Turks say the figure is inflated and insist that Armenians were killed
or displaced as the Ottoman Empire tried to secure its border with
Russia and stop attacks by Armenian militants.
The chances of the bill passing in the French assembly appeared slim.
The National Assembly is overwhelmingly controlled by President
Jacques Chirac’s conservatives, who have not passed a bill floated
by the Socialist opposition since they took over parliament in 2002.