TURKISH AMBASSADORS TO FRANCE, CANADA RETURN TO POSTS
Xinhua News Agency
May 11, 2006 Thursday 10:30 AM EST
Turkish ambassadors to France and Canada returned to their posts on
Thursday after consultations in Ankara regarding Armenian genocide
allegations, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
The two ambassadors have been recalled to Ankara early this week for
consultations over recent Armenian genocide allegations in France
and Canada.
Turkey is exerting efforts in diplomatic, political and economic
channels against a bill to be voted by the French parliament on May
18, which will criminalize any denial of the Armenian genocide at
the hands of the Turkish Ottoman Empire last century.
The bill, proposed by the main opposition Socialist Party in France,
will bring a fine of 45,000 Euros (57,000 U.S. dollars) and a prison
sentence to those who deny the Armenian genocide.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that he
believed a common sense would eventually win out as French- Turkish
relations were not “ordinary bilateral relations.”
Erdogan’s remarks came as a French parliamentary commission rejected
the bill on the same day. However, the possibility of adoption still
seems high, the Turkish Daily News reported Thursday.
On April 24, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to the
“Armenian genocide” as a fact in a statement, which exasperated Turkey.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Harper’s words were ” appalling”
and would “negatively affect” bilateral ties.
In 2001, Turkey cancelled millions of dollars worth of defense deals
with France companies after French lawmakers recognized such an
killing as genocide.
Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million of their kin were
slaughtered in orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917, a claim
rejected by Turkey.
The Turkish government has called for forming a joint research
commission of Turkish and Armenian historians to investigate the issue.