French MPs Back Armenia Genocide Bill, Turkey Angry

By REUTERS
Published: October 12, 2006
Filed at 1:31 p.m. ET

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s lower house of parliament approved a bill
on Thursday making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide at
the hands of Ottoman Turks, provoking anger in Turkey and raising
fresh doubts about its EU ambitions.

Ankara said the vote would damage ties between the two NATO allies and
French firms operating in Turkey feared they would suffer an immediate
backlash.

“This will be an unforgettable shame on France. France can never
describe itself as a country of freedoms again,” said Turkish Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul.

Turkey denies accusations some 1.5 million Armenians were massacred
during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in World War One,
arguing that Armenian deaths were a part of general partisan fighting
in which both sides suffered.

The French government distanced itself from Thursday’s bill, calling
it “unnecessary and untimely,” and indicated that it might never
become law as it still needs to be ratified by both the upper house
Senate and French president.

But Turkish officials, fearing a nationalist backlash that could put
the pro-European Ankara government on the defensive, said the damage
had already been done.

The legislation calls for a one-year prison term and 45,000 euro
($56,570) fine for anyone denying the 1915 genocide — the same
sanction as for denying the Nazi genocide of Jews.

“Does a genocide committed in World War One have less value than a
genocide committed in World War Two? Obviously not,” Philippe
Pomezec, a parliamentarian with the ruling Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP), said during the debate.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan hailed the vote as a
“natural continuation of France’s principled and consistent defense
of human and historic rights and values.”

HOSTAGE TO POLITICS

However, analysts saw the move more as a play for Armenian diaspora
votes in next year’s presidential election and said it highlighted how
easily Turkey’s EU candidacy can become a hostage to domestic politics
in EU member states.

“It is the intention of those French politicians who backed this bill
to antagonize Turkey, to push it to the limit and force it to throw in
the towel,” said Cengiz Candar, an EU expert at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir
University.

Some 60 protesters carried a black wreath down Istanbul’s main
commercial street on Thursday and laid it in front of the French
consulate.

Most French people oppose Turkey joining the 25-nation bloc and fear
over its potential membership was one of the reasons why France voted
last year to reject the EU constitution.

Anti-Turkish feeling was palpable as lawmakers left parliament on
Thursday. Influential UMP politician Patrick Devedjian, himself of
Armenian descent, said Muslim Turkey was not a democratic country and
did not deserve EU membership.

“It is like they are asking to enter a club but have already smashed
its windows,” he told Reuters television.

The European Commission warned France that its bill could hinder
efforts to end decades of dispute over the killings and noted that
criteria for talks on Turkey’s possible EU entry did not include
recognition of the Armenian killings as genocide.

An hour after the vote, Turkey’s best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, won
the Nobel prize for Literature.

Pamuk recently went on trial for insulting “Turkishness” after
telling a Swiss newspaper nobody in Turkey dared mention the Armenian
massacres. The court eventually dropped charges.

French businesses fear trade will suffer because of the row, with
French exports to Turkey worth 4.66 billion euros in 2005.

“Time will show. But I cannot say it will not have any
consequences,” Turkish Economics Minister Ali Babacan told reporters
in Brussels.