TURKISH PARLIAMENT DEBATES TROUBLED TIES WITH FRANCE

Agence France Presse — English
October 17, 2006 Tuesday

The Turkish parliament began a debate Tuesday to discuss relations
with France after a French bill making it a crime to deny Ottoman
Turks commited genocide against Armenians caused uproar in Turkey
and prompted threats of retaliatory measures.

The MPs were expected to adopt a declaration condemning the bill,
which foresees one year in jail for anyone who denies that the World
War I massacres amounted to genocide and was voted by the lower house
of the French parliament Thursday, parliamentary sources said.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was scheduled to make a speech.

The French 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.

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 — if approved also by the Senate and the president —
will block free debate on a historical subject.

The EU is pressing Ankara to either scrap or amend the infamous Article
301 of its penal code, which has landed a string of intellectuals in
the courts for "insulting Turkishness."

Most defendants, among them novelist Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel
Literature Prize laureate, stood trial for remarks contesting the
official line on the Armenian massacres, which Ankara fiercely rejects
amounted to genocide.

But even Pamuk condemned the French bill, saying that it flouted
France’s "tradition of liberal and critical thinking."

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 down widespread calls for a
boycott of French goods on the grounds that French companies based
in Turkey and employing Turks could be harmed.

"What are we going to earn or lose by boycotting goods?… We should
consider this carefully," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
last week.

"We will act calmly," he said. "The steps that need to be taken will be
taken by the government on all political platforms at home and abroad."

Hospitalized for hypoglycemia Tuesday, Erdogan will miss the debate
in parliament.

France already passed in 2001 a resolution recognizing the massacres
of Armenians as genocide, prompting Ankara to retaliate by sidelining
French companies from public tenders and canceling several projects
awarded to French firms.

The killings are one of most controversial episodes in Turkish history
and open debate on the issue has only recently begun in Turkey,
often sending nationalist sentiment into frenzy.

Critics of the bill say it will also deal a blow to tentative efforts
for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.

Ankara has declined to establish diplomatic ties with Yerevan over
its campaign for international recognition of the genocide.

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.

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.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress