Category: France

Gaddafi ‘contributed €50m to Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election fund’

Colonel Gaddafi in Paris after a meeting with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy in December 2007. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images

French president hit by new claims as confidential note suggests ex-Libyan leader helped finance his election campaign

Damaging new claims have emerged about the funding of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign and his links with former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi emerged.

The French investigative website Mediapart claims to have seen a confidential note suggesting Gaddafi contributed up to €50m (£42m) to Sarkozy’s election fund five years ago.

Similar allegations emerged a year ago when Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam claimed Libya helped finance the 2007 campaign and demanded the French president, who led the war on the Libyan leader, return the money.

In an interview with the Euronews TV channel, Saif al-Islam, who is currently being held in Libya after his father’s defeat and death, threatened to make details of the bank transfers public after the French leader threw his weight behind opposition forces.

The latest allegations come at a crucial time for Sarkozy who is seeking a second term in office in a two-round election in under six weeks.

Mediapart journalist Fabrice Arfi told the Guardian he had seen leaked documents contained in the legal dossier of the affair, currently under investigation by a judge.

“We knew these documents existed but it is the first time we have had the details of what was in them,” he said.

“And there are lots of details, including dates, places and amounts.”

One document, a government briefing note, allegedly points to visits to Libya by Sarkozy and his close colleagues and advisers, which it says were aimed at securing campaign funding.

Shortly after Sarkozy’s election, Colonel Gaddafi was invited to Paris and allowed to pitch his bedouin tent in the grounds of an official French residence close to the Elysée Palace. He was described as the “Brother Leader” by the French.

When previously asked about Saif al-Islam’s claims, a spokesman for the Elysée Palace told Le Monde: “We deny it, quite evidently.”

guardin.co.uk

March 16, 2012
Aeroports de Paris to Buy 38% of Turkey Airport Operator TAV

By Alex Webb and Ercan Ersoy

Aeroports de Paris, operator of the French capital’s airports, agreed to buy a 38 percent stake in Turkish counterpart TAV Havalimanlari Holding AS (TAVHL) for $874 million, the French operator’s largest purchase abroad.

TAV runs Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, seen here, as well as terminals in Latvia, Macedonia and Saudi Arabia. Photographer: Adam Berry/Bloomberg

The agreement with TAV (TAVHL)’s three biggest shareholders also includes a separate acquisition of a 49 percent stake in a construction company, TAV Yatirim Holding AS, for $49 million, Paris-based ADP said today in a statement. ADP and TAV will run 37 airports serving 180 million passengers worldwide, it said.

Enlarge image Aeroports de Paris to Buy 38% Holding in Turkey’s TAV

TAV runs Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, seen here, as well as terminals in Latvia, Macedonia and Saudi Arabia. Photographer: Adam Berry/Bloomberg

ADP was competing with Vinci SA (DG), Europe’s biggest construction company, to buy the TAV stake from investors including Akfen Holding AS (AKFEN). TAV runs Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Europe’s eighth-busiest, as well as terminals in Georgia, Tunisia, Latvia and Macedonia, and it has a contract to build and run an airport in Medina, Saudi Arabia. The purchase will help ADP’s earnings in 2013, the French company said.

“They already had some management contracts in some other foreign airports, but this is the first time that they’ve taken a stake this big in an airport this important,” said Laure Desbrosses, a Paris-based analyst at Oddo & Cie. “The price paid is not excessive, valuing TAV at about 15 percent more than its peers, so it’s a good move.”

Stocks Decline

ADP fell as much as 0.6 percent to 59.93 euros and was trading down 0.3 percent at 60.16 euros at 1:01 p.m. in Paris. The stock has gained 14 percent this year, valuing the company at 5.95 billion euros ($7.8 billion). TAV declined as much as 1.4 percent and was trading down 0.7 percent at 8.48 liras for a market value of 3.08 billion liras ($1.71 billion).

The other shareholders in TAV that are selling stakes are Tepe Holding AS’s Bilkent Holding and Sera Yapi Endustrisi & Ticaret AS.

“There will be a good return on our investment” by the time TAV’s operating concession for Ataturk Airport, the Turkish company’s biggest asset, expires in 2021, ADP Chief Executive Pierre Graff said in an interview after a news conference in Istanbul. The airport’s traffic rose 17 percent last year to 37.5 million passengers.

ADP may not have to make a mandatory tender offer to smaller shareholders in the Turkish airport operator because there’s no change in control of its board, though this is “something that the capital markets regulator will decide,” TAV CEO Sani Sener said at the news conference.

Investment Plan

The French airport operator said it’s paying about 11.30 liras a share for the stake. The purchase is part of ADP’s program of investing in international airports handling more than 10 million passengers a year with “strong” earnings growth potential in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development markets or Brazil, Russia, India or China, it said.

“There is a strategy that has been put in place by TAV which consists of acquiring external airports, one at a time,” Graff said at the news conference. “We have a great deal of respect for what has been achieved at TAV and don’t intend to change this strategy,” and the partners will take the lead in acquisitions in their respective stronger markets.

ADP owns 8 percent of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and held a stake in Beijing Capital International Airport Company Ltd. before selling that holding in 2007.

The acquisition is subject to the approval of Turkish antitrust regulators, Sener said. ADP will pay for the stake in cash at the closing, he said.

TAV’s selling shareholders hired Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) as its financial adviser, while Pekin & Bayar Law Firm (818987L) and Ertekin Law Office served as counsel. Aeroports de Paris (ADP) hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) as its adviser, and Hogan Lovells (1131L) and Pekin & Pekin as counsel.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Webb in Frankfurt at awebb25@bloomberg.net; Ercan Ersoy in Istanbul at eersoy@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net; Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net

via Aeroports de Paris to Buy 38% of Turkey Airport Operator TAV – Bloomberg.

March 15, 2012
Nicolas Sarkozy orders new Armenian genocide law

President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered his government to draft a new law punishing denial of the Armenian genocide after France’s top court struck it down as unconstitutional.

France election 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy’s EU fiscal pact referendum copout

Mr Sarkozy was accused of pandering to an estimated 400,000 voters of Armenian origin ahead of an April-May presidential election Photo: REUTERS

9:49PM GMT 28 Feb 2012

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed in a 1915-16 genocide by Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire. Turkey says 500,000 died and ascribes the toll to fighting and starvation during World War I.

France had already recognised the killings as a genocide, but the new law sought to go further by punishing anyone who denies this with up to a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (£38,000).

However, the Constitutional Council labelled the law an “unconstitutional attack on freedom of expression” and it said it wished “not to enter into the realm of responsibility that belongs to historians”.

Turkey quickly welcomed the ruling on the law which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced as “tantamount to discrimination and racism”.

Bulent Arinc, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, said on Twitter the ruling “has averted a potentially serious crisis in Turkish-French ties”.

The decision “does not indulge political concerns,” Arinc said after Mr Sarkozy was accused of pandering to an estimated 400,000 voters of Armenian origin ahead of an April-May presidential election.

The top court “gave a lesson in law to the French politicians who signed the bill, which was an example of absurdity,” said Arinc.

Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis said France had averted a “historical mistake”, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the decision “an important step that will legally avert future exploitations”.

However, Mr Sarkozy’s office quickly put out a statement saying the president “has ordered the government to prepare a new draft, taking into account the Constitutional Council’s decision.”

Mr Sarkozy noted “the great disappointment and profound sadness of all those who welcomed with hope and gratitude the adoption of this law aimed at providing protection against revisionism.”

After winning passage in the National Assembly and Senate, the law was put on hold in January after groups of senators and MPs opposed to the legislation demanded that its constitutionality be examined.

The groups gathered more than the minimum 60 signatures required to ask the council to test the law’s constitutionality.

At least two ministers, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire, had spoken out against the bill.

Ankara has already halted political and military co-operation with France and had threatened to cut off economic and cultural ties.

Trade between the two states was worth 12 billion euros ($15.5 billion) in 2010, and several hundred French businesses operate in Turkey.

Valerie Boyer, the MP from Mr Sarkozy’s party who proposed the bill, said she was “sad but determined” following the council’s ruling, noting that under French law it was a punishable crime to deny the Holocaust.

“Today under French law there are two types of victims and two types of descendants of victims … Some are protected from revisionist acts and some are not, and I think this is a serious double standard,” Boyer said.

Source: AFP

via Nicolas Sarkozy orders new Armenian genocide law – Telegraph.

March 1, 2012
Ankara remains isolated despite French no to genocide bill

By Carsten Hoffmann Feb 29, 2012, 16:53 GMT

Istanbul – The Turkish government has hailed the French Constitutional Council’s striking down of a draft law that would have criminalized the denial of an Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks.

However, the joy in Ankara may be short-lived as discussions are certain to continue, not least because Turkey’s strategy for dealing with the massacres of Armenians does not appear to be paying off, and is increasingly isolating the country.

Apart from France, there have also been disputes over the issue with the United States, Canada and Switzerland.

The US ambassador in Ankara, Francis Ricciardone, believes Turkey has to tackle the ghosts of its past.

‘We believe that historians have to address this issue openly and honestly in order to reach a genuine acknowledgement of what happened,’ he said.

Friends and critics alike have called on the Turkish government to show some movement on the issue before 2015, the centenary of the events, in order to prevent the possibility of a more serious conflict developing.

In the past, Turkey has resorted to diplomatic notes expressing strong protest, angry threats and the withdrawal of ambassadors in its battle against claims that genocide took place in the Ottoman Empire.

While Turkey does not deny the suffering of the Armenians during the First World War, it objects to what it considers to be a one-sided presentation of the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of Armenian that began in 1915 as a genocide.

Turkey’s NATO partners have long remained silent on the issue, even though many of them have detailed reports from their own diplomats at the time, who wrote about deportations and death marches.

However, Ankara has consistently argued that what it often refers to ‘the tragic events of 1915’ resulted from Turkey’s need to defend itself because the Armenians had allied themselves with the Russians and were planning a revolt.

‘Turkey does not deny the suffering of the Armenians, including the loss of many innocent lives, during the First World War. However, a greater number of Turks died or were killed in the years leading to and during the War,’ the Foreign Ministry wrote in a press release.

‘Parliaments and other political institutions should not legislate history when historians are debating the substance of the issue,’ it added.

Turkey has denied the substance of much of the genocide claims. In 2005 then Foreign Minister and current President Abdullah Gul said Turkey faced an extremely well organized campaign of genocide allegations.

‘This organized campaign is based on prejudices, slander, lies, exaggerations and fabrications concerning our nation and our country, which began to be disseminated nearly one century ago,’ he said.

At the time Henry Morgenthau, who was US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1913-1916, wrote in his memoirs that he was ‘confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode’ as the Armenian genocide.

Gul argues that Morgenthau was relying on information provided by Armenian extremists.

In 2008, Turkish intellectuals called in an open letter for forgiveness for the crimes perpetrated against the Armenian people but drew short of describing the events as ‘genocide’.

Renowned Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand has warned his country against falling into what he describes as a ‘genocide trap’.

‘The current situation has only arisen because we always just said no,’ he wrote.

via Ankara remains isolated despite French no to genocide bill – Monsters and Critics.

March 1, 2012
Matthew Bryza: politicians shouldn’t characterize events as genocide or not as genocide

Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 11 / Trend A.Badalova /

“It’s not the business of any politician in any country to characterize events as genocide or not as genocide,” former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza said in an interview with Turkish Hurriyet Daily newspaper.

On Jan 23, after an eight-hour debate, the French senate adopted the law criminalizing the denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide”. The bill demands a year’s imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euro for denying the so-called genocide.

French senators who did not agree with the adoption of the law appealed to the Constitutional Council on Jan. 31 with a request to cancel it. The council should examine issue on the law adopted in the both chambers of the French parliament and which many consider violating the Constitution and freedom of expression.

Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that the predecessor of the Turkey – Ottoman Empire had committed the 1915 genocide against the Armenians living in Anadolu, and achieved recognition of the “Armenian Genocide” by the parliaments of several countries.

Mr Bryza said it has to be up to societies, not to others, to have a decision taken based on a political calendar.

He noted truth is on everyone side, especially on Turkey’s side. The debate about this issue is really one-sided right now.

“If you believe there was a genocide committed, you can equally argue looking from a narrow definition of the word that genocide was committed to many others, against Turks or Muslims, in eastern Anatolia,” Mr Bryza said

February 12, 2012
‘French business interested in Azerbaijan and Turkey more than in Armenia’

News.Az interviews Ruslan Kostyuk, doctor of historical science, professor of the International Relations Faculty of the St.Petersburg State University.

Can you predict the decision of the Constitutional court regarding the law criminalizing the so-called ‘Armenian genocide’ recently passed in lower and upper chamber of the French parliament?

It is difficult to predict the decision of the Constitutional Court. The issue of this bill causes concern among socio-political forces in France less than political events. France is looking forward presidential elections soon, and, frankly, the issue of the Armenian “genocide” (hence the quotes below are ours – Ed.) Is not even among top seven issues, which are being actively discussed.

We know that Nicolas Sarkozy himself has initiated the adoption of the aforementioned bill. But in every French party, there are certain forces that favor the adoption of this law, and the forces that believe that the law should not have been adopted and disputes must be left to historians. Therefore, it is very difficult to predict the decision of the Constitutional Court. If the judgment is not in favor of the law, it will still be likely moral and political defeat of the current president of France. After all, everyone knows the anti-Turkish stance of Sarkozy primarily in Ankara’s membership in EU.

Is this law important for Sarkozy? It is primarily the intention to drag Armenian party to their side in anticipation of presidential elections or the reluctance to see Turkey inside the EU?

On the eve of the previous presidential election, he repeatedly said that Turkey’s accession to the EU is hardly possible. He said that for its geographical location Turkey is supposedly not a political Europe. So, by this bill Sarkozy complicates opportunities and prospects of the Turkish Republic in the EU. With regard to the fact that he may have done it before the presidential election, in order to win the Armenian Diaspora on its side, it is worth noting that the French of Armenian origin are really going to support Sarkozy, according to all sorts of polls. However, the French sociologists say that in this case, Sarkozy can count on the votes of 300,000-400,000 people. This is much less than the votes of all the Muslim diasporas in France put together. Sarkozy should better arrange the hunt to win them on his side before the election.

Today we see that the French-Turkish relations are going through not the best of their times. Ankara has already reacted and further plans to take adequate measures on the ‘French’ law. How do you think Azerbaijan should act, as the Turkish partner?

I would not make hasty conclusions, especially as this law does not apply directly to Azerbaijan. It is clear that there are special Turkish-Azerbaijani relations, it is clear that there is the Karabakh conflict, and the condition of the Azerbaijani-Armenian relations. However, I repeat, this law does not apply directly to Baku

I have to note that the French business is interested in Azerbaijan and Turkey to a much greater extent than in Armenia. We know perfectly well that the French car manufacturers control up to 25% of the Turkish car market. About a thousand of French companies have direct investments in Turkey. The French patronage took quite a strained position and its representatives tried to dissuade Sarkozy from doing so.

With regard to the issue of the Minsk Group and France, it is obvious that Paris has not been too neutral in Karabakh issue. There were certain actions in favor of Armenia. At the same time, France is one of the leading players in the EU. And if Baku puts the question of removing France from among the Minsk group co-chairs, won’t it harm relations between Azerbaijan and the EU?

Finally, France will soon have presidential elections and Sarkozy may probably be removed from power. And after this the foreign policy of France will likely be corrected by the new government.

Is the same law likely to be adopted in Russia too?

In my opinion, Russia and Turkey have far more complex and fast-evolving relationship, than it was before. In many ways, Turkey comes in the first place as an economic partner of Russia. For example, the sale of certain goods and tourism. Given the weight, which Turkey has, given the fact that the Russian-Turkish political, economic, scientific-technical relations have grown markedly in recent times, I do not think that at the moment the dominant forces of the State Duma will tolerate such a law.

Moreover, here is one more thing, albeit insignificant. It should be noted that representatives of the Yedinaya Rossiya party sit in the same group with representatives of the ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkey in PACE. This may not be the most obvious caveat, but still means something.

So I do not think that the adoption of this law is actual for Russia in the nearest perspective.

Hamid Hamidov

News.Az

via News.Az – ‘French business interested in Azerbaijan and Turkey more than in Armenia’.

February 8, 2012