FRENCH PRESIDENT ‘REGRETS’ ARMENIA BILL: TURKISH PM
Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday
French President Jacques Chirac expressed his regret to Turkey’s prime
minister over a French bill that insists the World War I massacres
of Armenians were genocide, Turkish media reported at the weekend.
"Mr Chirac expressed to me this morning (Saturday) his regrets"
and said he understood the fierce reaction in Turkey to Thursday’s
approval of the bill by France’s lower house, Turkey’s Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
The bill, launched by MPs of France’s opposition Socialist party but
opposed by Chirac’s government, would make it an offence punishable
by jail to deny that the massacres carried out under Ottoman rule
constituted genocide.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered,
but Turkey rejects the use of the term "genocide", saying some 300,000
Armenians died when the Ottoman Empire fell apart, but at least as
many Turks did too.
Speaking in Erdine, northwestern Turkey, Erdogan said Chirac had
promised to "do everything he could in the following process"
of readings through which the bill must pass before becoming law
in France.
And he attacked French lawmakers who he said "had made a grave mistake
in adopting such a primitive law."
"Because of certain narrow-minded deputies, the France we know as a
country of liberties is forced to live with this shame," Erdogan said.
A source close to the Turkish prime minister said that Erdogan had
pressed Chirac during their phone conversation to intervene and ensure
that the bill is annulled.
The bill was approved on a first reading by the lower house National
Assembly in Paris, but has still to undergo a vote in the Senate and
a second assembly reading before being passed into law.
Thursday’s vote, which was not attended by most MPs of Chirac’s
right-wing ruling party, sparked protest rallies in Turkey and fears
in France that it would jeopardise billions of dollars’ worth of
French trade in Turkey.
Turkish business and consumer groups have threatened to boycott
French products.
"If France does not cancel this text, it is France that will lose,
not Turkey," Erdogan said, quoted by Anatolia.