TURKISH PARLIAMENT SAYS ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL HITS TIES WITH FRANCE, ARMENIA

Agence France Presse — English
October 17, 2006 Tuesday 4:07 PM GMT

A French bill making it a crime to deny Ottoman Turks committed
genocide against Armenians will damage ties with France and hit
reconciliation efforts with neighbouring Armenia, the Turkish
parliament warned Tuesday.

The warning came in a joint declaration adopted by parliament after
a debate on 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.

"The French National Assembly has not only inflicted great damage on
bilateral ties but has also dealt a blow to efforts for a normalisation
in our ties with Armenia," the declaration said.

It said the bill, which needs to be approved by the French senate
and president to become a law, would have serious repercussions
on political, economic and military ties with France and also on
Armenia itself.

"The hostile policies Armenia employs against… the Turkish
people… will cost it dearly," it said.

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

In 1993, Turkey sealed its border with its eastern neighbor in a
gesture of solidarity with close ally Azerbaijan, which was then at war
with Armenia, dealing a heavy economic blow to the impoverished nation.

Diplomats from Turkey and Armenia have been holding exploratory talks
since last year in a bid to normalise ties, but there has so far been
no word on their progress.

Speaking in the general assembly before the adoption of the
declaration, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul also warned of a
deterioration in French-Turkish ties and said Ankara was considering
international legal means to combat the bill.

If the bill is adopted, "our ties will receive irreparable wounds in
politics, economics and security," Gul said, describing the draft as
a violation of 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 membership
in the European 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.

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.