CHIRAC CALLS ON TURKEY TO ACKNOWLEDGE ITS PAST
By Cihan News Agency

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 1 2006

French President Jacques Chirac has called on Turkey to "recognize
its past" in connection with so-called Armenian genocide, which Turkey
was claimed to have committed during World War I.

Chirac and his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian held a joint press
conference on Saturday in the Armenian capital of Yerevan following
their meeting. The two leaders accused Turkey of not recognizing the
so-called Armenian genocide.

When asked if Turkey had to recognize the ‘genocide’ to join the
European Union, Chirac stated "Honestly, I believe it does. Each
country grows by acknowledging its dramas and mistakes of the past".

Chirac contradicted previous statements he made that writing history
was the job of historians, not of the laws, when arguing against the
claims that France killed hundreds of thousands of Algerians between
1954 and 1962.

Hosting president Kocharian answered more softly and said that a
neighbor that had open borders and allowed free movement would be to
the interests of his country.

This recent move of Chirac is likely to strain relations between
Turkey and France, which passed a bill in 2001 recognizing the mass
killing of Armenians in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire as "genocide".

A drafted bill, which, if passed, would a maximum punishment of a
year’s imprisonment and a fine of ~@45,000 for those who deny the
existence of the "Armenian genocide", will be discussed and voted on
in the French parliament on Oct. 12.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament adopted a report critical on
Turkey’s accession to the European Union, dropping a clause that
would have made recognition of the mass killing of Armenians in the
Ottoman Turkey as genocide a pre-condition for Turkey’s membership.

However, the parliament called on Turkey to "acknowledge the Armenian
genocide."

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