TURKEY URGED TO ACKNOWLEDGE ARMENIAN KILLINGS AS GENOCIDE

Evening Echo, Ireland
Oct 12 2006

French presidential hopeful Segolene Royal said that Turkey must
recognise the mass killing of Armenians early last century as a
genocide if it hopes to join the European Union.

Royal, a Socialist, also said she was in favour of a bill to go
before France’s parliament today that would make it a crime to deny
that the killings amounted to genocide.

Turkish anger over the bill forced a delay in the initial debate, which
had been set for May, as politicians caved in to warnings by Turkish
authorities that bilateral ties would suffer if the bill became law.

Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul said France would compromise
its values if the measure became law.

"We’ve done everything we can," Gul said. "If this passes Turkey will
lose nothing, but France will first lose Turkey…It will turn into a
country that throws people in jail for expressing their thoughts, for
expressing their ideas, for stating what is in historical documents."

Royal, a politician hoping for the Socialist Party’s nomination
as 2007 presidential candidate, aligned herself with the official
stance that Turkey must recognise the killings as genocide if it
wants EU membership.

"It is obvious that if Turkey wants to confirm its candidacy and one
day enter Europe, it is obvious that it must recognise the Armenian
genocide," she said at a news conference called to set out her
positions on Europe.

She added that she was for the legislation going before parliament.

"We have no lessons to give anyone and, at the same time, something
has to be done."

About 40 Turkish demonstrators gathered at Place de la Concorde,
facing the National Assembly, to denounce the bill making it a crime
to deny Armenian genocide.

"The Armenian genocide is an imperialist lie," said Yalcin Buyukdagh,
who identified himself as the presidential counsel of the Workers
Party in Turkey.

"If France votes yes to this law, it will have officially taken a
position as an enemy of Turkey," he said.

Politicians in Ankara, looking to retaliate against Paris, discussed
proposals to recognise an "Algerian genocide" during France’s colonial
rule there, which ended in 1962 after a brutal war.

Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million people were killed between
1915 and 1923 in an organised campaign to force them out of eastern
Turkey. Turkey contends that a large number of people died in civil
unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.