TURKEY WANTS EU TO OPPOSE GENOCIDE BILL

The News – International. Pakistan
Oct 10 2006

ANKARA: Turkey called upon the European Union to oppose French
legislation that would outlaw denials that World War I-era killings
of Armenians amounted to genocide.

Lawmakers in France, which has some 400,000 citizens of Armenian
origin, have introduced a bill to penalize Armenian genocide denial
with fines and jail terms.

Turkey, which says the deaths came during a period of civil unrest
and don’t constitute genocide, asked the European bloc it seeks to
join to weigh in on its side.

"We expect the European Union to express its opposition against
such a development that restricts freedom of expression in France,
because it contradicts key values of the EU," said Justice Minister
Cemil Cicek, who also serves as the government’s spokesman.

Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million of their ancestors were
killed between 1915-1923 in an organized campaign to force them out
of eastern Turkey and have pushed for recognition of the killings
around the world 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.

Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought the help of
French companies doing business in Turkey to prevent the approval
of the bill and tensions between Turkey and France have been rising
before Thursday’s debate by French lawmakers in the lower house.

Under the bill, people who contest that there was an Armenian genocide
would risk up to a year in prison and fines of up to $57,000.

In May, French lawmakers had caved in to pressure from Turkey and
put off the sensitive debate on the issue in the lower house.

At the time, Turkish legislators also froze a retaliatory bill, which
said anyone who denied that the French committed genocide in Algeria,
a former French colony, could be put in jail and fined. Turkish
lawmakers are now scheduled to re-debate that bill Wednesday.

Earlier, a Turkish legislator Koksal Toptan called for a boycott of
French goods.