TURKISH-FRENCH TIES FACE ‘IRREPARABLE DAMAGE’ OVER GENOCIDE BILL: FM
Agence France Presse — English
October 17, 2006 Tuesday
A French bill making it a crime to deny Ottoman Turks committed
genocide against Armenians will inflict "irreparable damage" to
bilateral ties if adopted, the Turkish foreign minister warned Tuesday.
Speaking during a parliamentary debate on the future of Turkish-French
ties, Abdullah Gul said Ankara was considering international legal
means to combat the bill.
"The bill has caused great wounds in Turkish-French ties," Gul told
parliament.
If it is adopted, "the wounds it has opened will be irreparable. Our
ties will receive irreparable wounds in politics, economics and
security," he said.
The bill, which was voted by the lower house of the French parliament
Thursday, foresees one year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (57,000
dollars) for anyone who denies that World War I massacres of Armenians
were genocide.
It needs the approval of the Senate and the president to become law.
Gul said Ankara was studying a detailed plan of retaliatory measures
against the bill, which he said violated freedom of expression,
a basic tenet of the European Union.
"The government will use all means provided by international law,
including resorting to judiciary means," Gul said.
Analysts have said Turkey could challenge the French bill at the
European Court of Human Rights after it has been adopted.
The bill is widely seen here as a punch below the belt by opponents
of Turkey’s European Union membership that will fan anti-Western
sentiment among Turks and make it harder for the government to push
ahead with painful EU-demanded reforms.
"France has made a definite decision to block Turkey’s full membershup
in the Europeaun Union," said Sukru Elekdag, a senior MP from the
main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). "France’s aim is to
frustrate Turkey, to force it to throw in the towel."
Ankara, facing mounting EU warnings to respect freedom of speech,
charges that the French move is an example of double standards,
arguing that the bill eventually could block free debate on a
historical subject.
Opposition lawmakers called also for reprisals against neighboring
Armenia which is waging an international campaign to have the killings
recognised as genocide.
"If they hurt us, then we should hurt them too," Onur Oymen, also
from the CHP, said, suggesting that about 70,000 illegal Armenian
workers in Turkey, who have so far been tolerated, be sent back.
Critics of the French bill say it will deal a blow to tentative
efforts for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.
Ankara has declined to establish diplomatic ties with Yerevan. In
1993, it sealed its border with its eastern neighbor, a move which
was also a gesture of solidarity with close ally Azerbaijan, which
was then at war with Armenia.
Ankara had warned ahead of the vote that French companies would be
barred from major economic projects in Turkey, including a nuclear
power plant whose tender process is expected to soon begin, if the
bill was adopted.
Officials, however, have sought to calm widespread calls for a boycott
of French goods on the grounds that French companies based in Turkey
and employing Turks could be harmed.
The killings are one of the most controversial episodes in Turkish
history.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917.
Turkey categorically rejects the genocide label, arguing that
300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife
when Armenians rose for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.