The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)

(Filed: 10/10/2006)

Turkey’s EU plans threatened by genocide dispute with the French

By David Rennie, Europe Correspondent

Turkey’s painful progress towards European Union membership has been
plunged into crisis by a dispute with the French over the massacre of
Armenians during and after the 1914-18 war.

A Socialist-backed proposal, which could pass the National Assembly on
Thursday, would make it illegal in France to deny that the killings
amounted to genocide by Turkey.

The legislation, which has gained support from Right-wing assembly
members, would see anyone denying that a genocide took place jailed
for up to five years.

Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million of their ancestors were
killed between 1915 and 1923 in an organised campaign to eradicate
them from eastern Turkey.

The Turkish government fiercely denies a genocide, saying that
hundreds of thousands of Turks and Armenians died in a civil war.

Under Turkish law, it is illegal to accuse the state of genocide.
Scores of Turkish writers and intellectuals who have debated the
massacres publicly have faced prosecution under article 301 of the
penal code, outlawing insults to "Turkishness".

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reacted with
indignation to the French proposal, asking: "What would you do if the
Turkish prime minister came to France and denied that the genocide had
taken place? Arrest him?"

In retaliation, the Turkish parliament’s justice committee will on
Wednesday discuss a draft plan to imprison people who deny that France
committed genocide during its colonial rule over Algeria.

Thousands of protesters who marched in Istanbul at the weekend vowed
to mount a trade boycott of French goods.

Mr Erdogan also met representatives from several French multinationals
on Saturday, including the car makers Peugeot and Renault and the
supermarket chain Carrefour, to press home the serious risks to the
multi-billion pound annual trade between Turkey and France.

The draft law has been taken up by the leading French presidential
candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, a long-time opponent of Turkish entry into
Europe.

He revealed yesterday that he had telephoned Mr Erdogan, saying his
party might still drop its proposal for the law if Turkey met three
conditions: dropping the penal law forbidding mention of the genocide;
opening the Turkish-Armenian border; and equal representation on a
joint Turkish-Armenian research committee.

Last week, President Jacques Chirac, publicly a supporter of Turkish
EU membership, suggested that recognition of "genocide" against the
Armenians should be a precondition of EU entry.

Mr Sarkozy raised the stakes by saying in a radio interview that, even
if Turkey admitted genocide, that should not guarantee it EU entry.

The EU enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, expressed concerns that
the French law would abruptly shut down the first signs that the
Turkish government would be willing to tolerate some historical
re-examination of the killings.

Supporters of Turkey’s EU entry said France was being "completely unhelpful."

Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat MEP and prominent ally of Turkey in
Brussels, said he spent yesterday meeting senior Turkish MPs, who
asked him: "Why are you asking us to defend freedom of expression in
Turkey, when France is proposing to shut down freedom of expression in
France?"

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress