CHIRAC TELLS TURKEY TO ADMIT GENOCIDE
By Simon Ostrovsky And Mariam Haroutunian – Yerevan
Middle East Online, UK
Sept 30 2006
French President urges Ankara to recognize 1915-1917 massacres in
Armenia before joining EU.
French President Jacques Chirac on Saturday urged Turkey to recognize
World War I-era massacres of Armenians as genocide if it wants to join
the European Union, speaking during a visit to the Armenian capital.
In comments that are likely to irritate Ankara and put a further
strain on its relations with France, Chirac told a news conference
Turkey needed to face up to its past in response to a question on
the nation’s EU ambitions.
Asked if he thought Turkey should recognize the 1915-1917 massacres
as genocide before it joins the EU, the French president replied:
"Honestly, I believe so."
"All countries grow up acknowledging their dramas and their errors,"
said Chirac, who is on a two-day visit to Armenia, where he has paid
homage to Yerevan’s "genocide" memorial and attended the inauguration
of a "France Square" in central Yerevan.
Until now, France had refused to make a direct link between the
genocide issue and Turkey’s EU membership bid. The bloc has not made
it a condition of entry.
But a response to the same question by Chirac’s Armenian counterpart
Robert Kocharian was markedly softer, reflecting Armenia’s desire to
mend ties with its neighbor and improve its struggling economy.
"We don’t see any danger in this process," Kocharian said of Turkey’s
EU aspirations, "but we would like that our interests would be
discussed in the process too," he added.
Kocharian said it would be in Armenia’s interests to have a neighbor
"with a value system that allows for free movement and open borders."
France, which has 400,000 citizens of Armenian descent, officially
recognized the events as genocide in 2001, putting a strain on its
relations with fellow NATO member Turkey.
A proposal by France’s socialists to make genocide denial a crime
punishable by a year in prison and a 45,000-euro fine has elicited
further ire in Turkey, but Chirac said he did not support the proposal.
"France has fully recognized the tragedy of the genocide and all
the rest is more like polemics than legislative reality," he said of
the proposal.
Armenia has campaigned for Turkey to recognize the WWI massacres,
in which it says 1.5 million Armenians died, as genocide.
But Turkey argues that that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many
Turks died in an internal conflict sparked by attempts by Armenians
to win independence in eastern Anatolia.