EU CONCERNED BY FRENCH GENOCIDE VOTE

EUPolitix.com, Belgium
Oct 12 2006

The EU has warned that French moves to make denying the Armenian
genocide a crime could damage membership talks with Turkey.

The lower house of the French parliament voted on Thursday to back
plans that would make denying the WWI genocide by Turkish troops
a crime.

A spokeswoman for European commission enlargement chief Olli Rehn
stressed that the decision did not mean the law had been passed,
and that it still had to be approved by the upper house, the senate.

"But commissioner Rehn has made it clear in the last few days that he
believes the law will prohibit debate and dialogue on reconciliation
on this issue," she said.

"Reconciliation is a very important EU value, but we have made it
clear that recognition of the Armenian genocide is not a prerequisite
of Turkish EU membership."

But she did admit that the commission was worried that the French
action could hamper the burgeoning discussion on the genocide in
Turkey.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan has recently established
a commission of historians to establish the truth about the genocide,
which Ankara claims was not a planned extermination but due to the
fighting in WWI.

Some commentators have suggested that the French law would limit
freedom of expression – something for which Turkey has been criticised
in the past, and which Rehn believes still needs to be resolved.

The French vote comes on the same day that Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish
writer acquitted last year of denigrating the Turkish state, was
awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

Rehn called the award "good news for all those who want to speak,
search, learn the truth, pursue dialogue, exchange thoughts and
knowledge – not just in Turkey, but everywhere else, in Europe and
in the world".

–Boundary_(ID_gBBcV2T4If/nKxFlbMV8e Q)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress