CHIRAC: TURKEY SHOULD USE TERM GENOCIDE
Associated Press
Sept 30 2006
YEREVAN, Armenia — French President Jacques Chirac urged Turkey on
Saturday to acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians in the early
20th century as genocide.
Armenians say that as many as 1.5 million of their ancestors were
killed in 1915-1923 in an organized campaign to force them out of
eastern Turkey and have pushed for recognition around the world of
the killings as genocide.
Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but says
the overall figure is inflated and that the deaths occurred in the
civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. But Ankara
is facing increasing pressure to fully acknowledge the killings,
particularly as it seeks membership in the European Union.
"Should Turkey recognize the genocide of Armenia to join the European
Union?" Chirac asked, echoing a question posed by a reporter at a
joint news conference with Armenian President Robert Kocharian.
"Honestly, I believe so. Each country grows by acknowledging its
dramas and errors of the past."
Chirac’s comments went further than in the past, using the word
genocide directly for the first time. In 2004, Chirac said Turkey
should recognize the killings and make "an effort at memory" to join
the EU. France’s parliament has officially recognized the killings
as genocide.
Chirac has personally supported Turkey’s entry into the 25-nation EU,
though many French have grave misgivings, fearing an influx of cheap
labor and questioning Turkey’s human rights record.
Earlier Saturday, Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, laid a wreath at
the Memorial to the Victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Ottoman
Turkey and visited the Genocide Museum and Institute. Chirac wrote
a single world in the guestbook: "Remember."
Chirac was paying the first visit by a French president to the former
Soviet republic of Armenia since in gained independence. France has
some 400,000 citizens of Armenian origin, and plans several events
in the coming year linked to Armenian culture and history.
"Can one say that Germany, which has deeply acknowledged the Holocaust,
has as a result lost credit? It has grown," Chirac said, urging Turkey
to take inspiration from that and other examples.
Kocharian thanked France for giving "the force of law" to recognition
of the killings as genocide.
Chirac and Kocharian then participated in the opening ceremony for
French Republic Square in the center of Yerevan and attended a concert
by Charles Aznavour, a famous French singer of Armenian origin.