TURKISH RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE NOT A CONDITION FOR EU MEMBERSHIP

Hemscott, UK
Oct 3 2006

ANKARA (AFX) – Turkey’s recognition of the World War I Armenian
massacres as genocide is not a condition for its membership in the
European Union, EU Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn said here.

‘The European Union’s view on the matter is that the recognition of
the Armenian genocide is not a condition of accession to the European
Union,’ Rehn told reporters.

French President Jacques Chirac said during a visit to Armenia at the
weekend that Ankara should recognize the massacres committed under
the Ottoman Empire as genocide if it wants to join the EU.

Some members of the European Parliament have also irked Ankara by
seeking to impose recognition of the genocide label as a condition
for entry into the EU.

Rehn said the EU encouraged ‘an open and rational debate’ on the
killings, which Turks have only recently begun to openly discuss.

‘Only finding the historical truth in the spirit of dialogue can
bring a lasting reconciliation’ between Turkey and Armenia, Rehn said.

He also backed a Turkish proposal to set up a joint committee of
Turkish and Armenian historians to study the massacres, ‘because it’s a
much better way of dealing with this very sensitive historical issue
than sending ultimatums.’

The Turkish foreign ministry, meanwhile, harshly criticised Chirac,
charging that his acknowledgement of the massacres as genocide was
‘unacceptable’.

‘President Chirac’s remarks which give the impression that Armenian
allegations (of a genocide) is among the criteria for our EU accession
have deeply hurt the Turkish people,’ the ministry said in a statement.

Armenians claim up to 1.5 mln of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 and want the massacres
to be internationally recognized as genocide.

Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in
civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern
Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman
Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey.

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