FRENCH IN ARMENIA ‘GENOCIDE’ ROW

BBC News, UK
Oct 12 2006

Ethnic Armenian campaigners in France hailed the result The French
parliament has adopted a bill making it a crime to deny that Armenians
suffered "genocide" at the hands of the Turks, infuriating Turkey.

The bill, proposed by the Socialists and opposed by the government,
needs approval from the Senate and president.

Turkey called the decision a "serious blow" to relations with France.

It has already threatened economic sanctions.

Armenia says Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million people systematically
in 1915 – a claim strongly denied by Turkey.

The European Commission has said that the bill, if passed into law,
will "prohibit dialogue which is necessary for reconciliation"
between Turkey and Armenia on the issue.

The opposition against Turkey in the EU has begun to present an
ugly face

Cengiz Candar Turkish commentator

Turkish press divided Send us your comments

Turkey has been warning France for weeks not to pass the bill.

"Turkish-French relations, which have been meticulously developed over
the centuries, took a severe blow today through the irresponsible
initiatives of some short-sighted French politicians, based on
unfounded allegations," the Turkish foreign ministry said.

Nobel prize

The bill sponsored by the opposition Socialist party provides for a
year in jail and a 45,000-euro (£30,000) fine – the same punishment
that is imposed for denying the Nazi Holocaust.

Q&A: Armenian genocide Turkish writer wins Nobel prize

The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) did not back the law,
but gave its deputies a free vote.

It passed by 106 votes to 19, after most deputies left the chamber
in protest against what critics say is an attempt to attract votes of
the some 500,000 people of Armenian descent in presidential elections
next year.

Ethnic Armenians in Paris celebrated the result.

"The memory of the victims is finally totally respected," said Alexis
Govciyan.

But French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin distanced himself
from the bill.

It is "not a good thing to legislate on issues of history and of
memory," he said.

The vote came as controversial Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk won the
2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.

He has faced prosecution in Turkey for talking about the murder of
hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I and thousands
of Kurds in subsequent years.

The charges have since been dropped.

EU membership bid

Debate on the Armenian issue has been stifled in Turkey.

Arguments have raged for decades about the Armenian deaths

The official Turkish position states that many Christian Armenians
and Muslim Turks died in fighting during World War I – but that there
was no genocide.

The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says many Turks are angry
at what they see as double standards in the EU, where opinions are
sharply divided about whether Turkey should be allowed to join.

Turkey’s chief negotiator in EU membership talks, Ali Babacan, said:
"This is violating one of the core principles of the European Union,
which is freedom of expression."

"Leave history to historians," he added.

France’s President Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have
both said Turkey will have to recognise the Armenian deaths as genocide
before it joins the EU – though this is not the official EU position.

There are accusations in Turkey that the Armenian diaspora and
opponents of Turkey’s EU membership bid are using this issue to
prevent Turkey joining the 25-member bloc.

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