SYRIAN ARMENIANS DISAPPROVE OF FRENCH BILL
By Bostan Cemiloglu, Cihan News Agency, Damascus

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 16 2006

Armenians living in Syria have expressed their disapproval of a French
bill that makes it a crime to deny that a genocide of Armenians was
perpetrated by Ottoman Turks during World War I.

Edward Halladciyan, the son of a family forced to emigrate from
Kahramanmaras to Syria, has been operating a tourism agency called
Al Boustan with his Turkish friend Yusuf Isa for fifteen years.

Halladciyan believes the decision of the French parliament was purely
political, expressing that the government used the Armenian issue as
a political trump card.

Halladciyan, who has the Armenian flag on his desk and a picture of
Sultanahmet Mosque on his wall, asserted that problems between Turks
and Armenians have been left in the past.

"In Syria, we are like brothers with the Turks. It has been years since
we forgot the allegations that Turkey committed genocide against the
Armenians. This is an issue which dates over a century.

We Armenians are used to living with Turks," Halladciyan said.

Thinking that France is using the Armenian issue as a way to block
Turkey’s EU bid, he added that if a real solution was being sought,
then both sides should come together and reach a compromise through
negotiations.