Tag: denial of Armenian Genocide

Turkey pressures France to stop Armenian genocide bill

As the French Senate rushes to consider a bill that would penalise denial of the massacre of over 1 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is lobbying to stop the effort, warning of economic consequences.

The Senate is set to vote by the end of January on a bill that would make it illegal to deny that the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide, Turkish and French news media reported yesterday (4 January), quoting parliamentary and government sources.

The French National Assembly voted in favour last month of a bill that would penalise denial of the Armenian massacre by a maximum one-year prison sentence and a €45,000 fine. The punishment would be on par with denial of the Holocaust.

This led Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings with Paris and to recall its ambassador for consultations. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hit back at France, denouncing 45,000 Algerian deaths in 1945, at that time under French rule, as well as the alleged role of France in the massacre of 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994.

Turkey rejects qualifying the killings as “genocide” in the same category as the Jewish Holocaust. Ankara also says the Turkish republic founded in 1922 shouldn’t be held responsible for actions of Ottoman rulers, and inisists that the issue should be left to historians.

Supporters of the bill want to see the legislation approved before parliament adjourns at the end of February ahead of presidential elections in April and May.

Final hearings

In the meantime, Turkey indicated that it would use the time available to lobby against the legislation, the daily Zaman reported. The Turkish ambassador to France is expected to return in Paris anytime soon, and is to attend hearings on the bill in the Senate.

Legal experts, officials from Turkish and Armenian groups and the Turkish and Armenian ambassadors to Paris are also expected to be present.

Despite earlier angry calls for a boycott of French goods, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said Ankara would not launch a pressure campaign.

But Many Turks reportedly said they would not buy French goods, and a businessman reportedly set up a €1-million fund from which fines for genocide denial would be paid.

Turkish economic experts say the genocide legislation could be detrimental for the French economic interest in Turkey, mainly for the public contracts. Turkey’s adoption of the EU’s environmental policies is opening huge market opportunities for the French companies. Together with other opportunities in energy, transport, defence and aviation, almost €100 billion worth of market activity is now becoming difficult to access for the French companies because the country’s image and credibility in Turkey are getting negative, a Turkish expert told EurActiv.

Positions:

Bahadir Kaleagasi, president of the Paris-based Bosphorus Institute, told EurActiv that he saw a link between the push by “some French politicians” for the bill, and the presidential elections in April and May.

“It is interesting to observe that a great majority of the French media and public are against this move that they judge as a political manipulation harming the freedom of expression and the democratic credentials of France.”

Kaleagasi said the Armenia massacres could not be put into the same basket as the genocide of the Jews.

“This [bill] criminalises the ongoing historical research and opening of the archives of all the countries involved in the First World War to enlighten all aspects of the ethnic violence and human tragedies of the same era. This project of the bill undermines also Turkey’s current public debate for a better reconciliation with the history and Armenia. France could have played a constructive role in this process. Moreover, the French attitude is perceived by the Turkish population as hostile. It is really pity, because there were no tangible conflicts between two countries which have great joint interests in an increasingly challenging global economic and political context,” Kalegasi said.

“The so-called Armenian genocide problems” cannot be resolved by a vote in the French Parliament, Ramazan Gözen from the Abant İzzet Baysal University argues in a commentary published by the daily Zaman.

“If the aim of the French National Assembly is to politically isolate Turkey, tear it away from the EU and put pressure on its foreign policy – if there is such a deep scheme behind all that manoeuvring – the country to be harmed the most is firstly France. The signals of that have already been seen in the international media. The world media have come up with views that France’s move will draw reactions from almost all countries, Turkey in particular,” Gözen writes.

Turkey has fallen in Sarkozy’s trap, writes Etyen Mahçupyan, chief editor of the Armenian daily Agos, in a commentary published by the French website Mediapart.

According to Mahçupyan, the French president aims at provoking the authorities in Ankara to a response out of proportion, which would ultimately dishonour Turkey.

The author advises that instead of overreacting, Turkey should show France that its stands on higher ground. The Turkish prime minister could even make a statement and offer French tourists discount prices, he writes.

via Turkey pressures France to stop Armenian genocide bill | EurActiv.

January 7, 2012
French ‘genocide’ bill: Senate set for January vote

The French Senate is to vote by the end of the month on a bill making it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians was genocide, reports say.

Protesters from France's Turkish community voiced their anger about the bill

The lower house of parliament backed the proposal on 22 December, prompting a freeze in relations with Turkey.

Despite Ankara’s angry response, government officials have told French media that the vote will go ahead.

Turkey rejects the term “genocide” to describe the killing of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16.

Armenians say 1.5 million people were either slaughtered or died of starvation or disease when they were deported en masse from eastern Anatolia.

Turkey says the number was closer to 300,000.

France is one of more than 20 countries that have formally recognised the killings as genocide.

Under proposals backed by the National Assembly last month, anyone publicly denying it was genocide would face a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros ($58,000; £29,000).

A similar punishment for Holocaust denial has been in place since 1990.

‘Useless’ bill

Although the bill secured cross-party support among MPs, concerns have been raised among some ministers.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has condemned it as “useless and counter-productive” and predicted serious repercussions for relations with Turkey.

Protesters from France’s Turkish community rallied outside parliament against the bill last month and Turkey’s ambassador to Paris, Tahsin Burcuoglu, was recalled to Ankara. He is now thought likely to return to campaign against the bill’s approval in the senate.

If ratified by the upper house, the bill would then go to President Nicolas Sarkozy. Ankara has already halted military and diplomatic relations and has threatened further measures if its passage continues.

The decision to proceed with the senate vote five years on is being seen as an attempt to speed up the progress of the bill.

A similar proposal was backed by the lower house in 2006 but was voted down in the senate the following year.

French businessman Rachid Nekkaz launched a fund on Tuesday to pay the fine of anyone convicted of the offence if it secures parliamentary approval.

via BBC News – French ‘genocide’ bill: Senate set for January vote.

January 5, 2012
Sarkozy: Turkey Cannot Teach France Any “Lessons”

Armenia Thanks France for Genocide Bill

PARIS — France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy dismissed on Friday Turkey’s furious reaction to the passage of a French bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide, saying that Ankara cannot teach his country any “lessons.”

“I respect the views of our Turkish friends — it’s a great country, a great civilization — and they must respect ours,” the AFP news agency quoted Sarkozy as saying in Prague where he attended the funeral of late Czech President Vaclav Havel.

“France is not giving lessons to anyone but does not want them either,” he said.

“Under all circumstances, we must remain calm … France does not ask for permission, France has its convictions, human rights, and respect for memory,” added Sarkozy.

In remarks aired by French television, Sarkozy also cited that in 2001 the French parliament had recognized the Armenian Genocide.

“Ten years ago France adopted a law recognizing the Armenian genocide, the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians,” he said. “Now the question for the parliament was to know whether the recognition of this genocide should mean that those disputing it can be held accountable.

“This is what was decided by the National Assembly. You see, France has principles.”

Earlier on Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused France of committing genocide in its former colony Algeria and launched a personal attack on Sarkozy. “In Algeria from 1945, an estimated 15 percent of the population was massacred by the French. This is a genocide,” Erdogan said on live television, according to Reuters.

“If the French President Mr. Sarkozy doesn’t know about this genocide he should go and ask his father, Paul Sarkozy. His father served in the French Legion in Algeria in the 1940s. I am sure he would have lots to tell his son about the French massacres in Algeria,” the Turkish premier said.

AFP reported that France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called on Turkey not to “overreact” to a bill that he insisted was a parliamentary initiative, and not a project of Sarkozy’s government.

“We have been accused of genocide! How could we not overreact?” the Turkish ambassador to France, Tahsin Burcuoglu, said before taking a flight home. “Turkey will never recognize this story of an Armenian genocide.”

Armenia Thanks France

Armenia on Friday again thanked France for the Genocide bill adopted by the parliament. In a letter to his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, President Serzh Sarkisian said the French National Assembly demonstrated France’s devotion to “universal human values” when it approved a corresponding bill on Thursday.

According to the presidential press office, Sarkisian said the vote also testifies to Sarkozy’s personal commitment to strengthening “Armenian-French friendship,” eliminating “division lines” and “reconciling peoples” in the region.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian also thanked France in a statement issued immediately after the National Assembly in Paris voted to pass the bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian and other genocides.

via Sarkozy: Turkey Cannot Teach France Any “Lessons” | Massis Post Armenian News.

December 25, 2011
Turkey’s Leader Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocide

Daniel Etter for The New York Times

Posters of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose role in advancing Turkey’s economy and society have won him wide admiration in the Arab world.

By DAN BILEFSKY

ISTANBUL — In a deepening diplomatic rupture, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey accused France on Friday of genocide against Algerians in the period of French colonial rule, one day after France made it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks.

“Approximately 15 percent of the population in Algeria have been subjected to a massacre by the French starting from 1945,” Mr. Erdogan said of the French dominion, which ended in 1962. “This is genocide.”

Mr. Erdogan’s sharp remarks seemed to severely dent Turkey’s already fraught talks on joining the European Union. But more immediately, they underscored concerns both at home and abroad that Turkey’s expansive new sense of self-confidence — buttressed by its emerging role as a leader in the Middle East — might be tipping into arrogance, threatening to alienate allies and foes at a critical time.

Turkey halted diplomatic consultations and military dealings with France on Thursday after the lower house of the French Parliament backed the bill, which would impose a fine of about $58,700 and a year in jail for those who deny the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1918. Turkish lawmakers also called on France to investigate its own atrocities in Algeria.

Turkey faces a raft of foreign-policy challenges on its doorstep, any one of which could derail its long-term goal of obtaining regional power status. France, a powerful member of the European Union, has played a leading role in thwarting Turkey’s efforts to join the group, so the latest clash is likely to harden French attitudes even more.

An increasingly outsize national ego, analysts say, had already helped to fray ties with Europe. With talks to join the union hopelessly stalled, many of Turkey’s 79 million people have greeted the euro crisis with barely concealed glee, saying Europe has rejected them because they are Muslim.

Closer to home, three of the most volatile states in the world — Syria, Iraq and Iran — are lined up along Turkey’s southern and eastern borders. Syria is already in a state of civil war, and Iraq seems to be flirting once again with sectarian strife and dissolution. Throw in an alienated Kurdish minority combined with an Iran that erupted in 2009 and is now struggling with economic sanctions and inflation, and the possibilities of regional destabilization, mass refugee flows and even war do not seem terribly remote.

Facing such threats, analysts and diplomats say, Turkey needs to resist the temptation to gloat and swagger. Soli Ozel, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, said that European and American economic decline, coupled with the Arab Spring, were magnifying Turkey’s sense of its own importance as it evolves into the model of democracy for the Arab world.

“Turks are saying, ‘We are now on the rise, you are running out of steam and we don’t have to take any nonsense from Westerners,’ ” he said. But he added, “There is a fine line between self-confidence and hubris.”

Turkey and its charismatic prime minister, Mr. Erdogan, could be forgiven for displaying some vanity. He has overhauled a country once haunted by military coups into a regional democratic powerhouse. He is so popular in the Arab world that there has been a surge in babies named Tayyip.

While Turkey’s economy surges — growing by 8.2 percent in the third quarter, second only to China — Europe is sputtering and Greece, a longtime rival, has been flattened by the sovereign debt crisis. With its new clout as a leader in a region long dominated by the United States, Turkey has also been basking in its roles as the voice of regional indignation against Syria and the chief critic of Israel.

Earlier this month a deputy prime minister boldly lectured Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that it was Turkey, and not the struggling economies of the United States and Europe, that would win the 21st century.

“The fast fish, not the big fish, eats the small fish,” said the official, Ali Babacan, who oversees the economy. Challenging his host’s boastful tone, Mr. Biden reminded the audience that in a sea of young sharks, the United States was still the whale.

Six years ago, Burak Turna, a Turkish writer, was mocked here as a literary shock jock after he wrote a futuristic novel in which Turkish commandos besiege Berlin, lay waste to Europe and take control of the Continent. Now, he says, the same people who once dismissed him are celebrating him. “There is a new air being pumped into the Turkish consciousness,” he said. But, he warned, “We shouldn’t be too brave or overconfident.”

Indeed, for all of Turkey’s recent achievements, its aim of having “zero problems” with its neighbors has shown few successes.

Turkish officials tried in vain for months to persuade President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to halt his violent crackdown against civilians, before finally turning against him. Turkey has been unable to resolve conflicts with Cyprus and Armenia. Its recent decision to host a NATO radar installation has rankled Iran. Relations with Israel collapsed after Israeli troops killed nine people aboard a Turkish flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

In September, the limits of Turkey’s appeal as a political model were laid bare when Mr. Erdogan told the Egyptian satellite channel Dream TV that secularism was not the enemy of religion and that Egypt should embrace a secular constitution. A spokesman for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which won first-round parliamentary elections there, told the Egyptian daily Al Ahram that Mr. Erdogan was interfering in Egyptian affairs. (Mr. Erdogan’s aides said the term secularism had been mistranslated as atheism.)

Nor were many Kosovar Albanians amused in August when Turkey’s minister of education, Omer Dincer, asked his Kosovo counterpart to alter offending paragraphs from history textbooks, which he said insulted the Ottoman Turks. Local historians protested that Turkey was trying to whitewash centuries of Ottoman subjugation.

The perils of standing in Turkey’s way became abundantly clear at the United Nations during the annual General Assembly meeting of world leaders this fall.

Mr. Erdogan was on the fourth floor of the General Assembly hall when he learned that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whom he ardently supports, was making his address demanding full United Nations membership for Palestine. When Mr. Erdogan rushed to the nearest entrance to take Turkey’s seat on the main floor, a security guard refused to let him pass. When Mr. Erdogan pressed forward, a loud scuffle erupted that was audible four flours below.

One Western diplomat noted that “the Turks were literally throwing their weight around.”

Yet Turkey’s many defenders say the West cannot expect Turkey to play regional leader and then criticize it when it flexes its muscles. Moreover, they note, the country is entitled to defend its dignity.

At the summit meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Cannes, France, in November, cameras showed Mr. Erdogan suddenly kneeling down when he noticed a sticker of the Turkish flag on the floor to mark the position where he was supposed to stand for a group photo, near President Obama.

He gently folded it and put it in his pocket.

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 24, 2011, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Turkey’s Leader Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocide.

December 24, 2011
Turkey to abide by WTO norms in French boycott

Turkey’s Ambassador to France Tahsin Burcuoğlu speaks to reporters upon his arrival in Ankara. (Photo: AA)

23 December 2011 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

Turkey signaled on Friday that business reprisals against France will be restricted, saying there are obligations it has to obey in line with World Trade Organization (WTO) and Customs Union norms.

“Turkey has obligations. The Turkish state can’t do this given the WTO and Customs Union rules,” Turkey’s Ambassador to France, Tahsin Burcuoğlu, told reporters when asked to comment on a possible boycott of French goods in response to a French vote on Thursday to criminalize denial of claims of Armenian genocide.

Burcuoğlu did indicate, however, that the “man on the street” has the right to decide what goods to buy and what not to buy.

The French National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, adopted a bill on Thursday that sets a punishment of up to a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($59,000) for those who deny the Armenian genocide.

Turkish businessmen earlier warned that French business interests would be also harmed if such a bill were to become law, referring to orders made by Turkish Airlines for Airbus aircraft and planned investments worth billions of dollars in the energy sector for which French companies would likely be bidders.

However, the French government has warned Turkey against imposing unilateral trade sanctions, reminding Ankara of its obligations under WTO rules and its Customs Union agreement with the European Union.

“We have to remember international rules and Turkey is a member of the WTO and is linked to the European Union by a customs union, and these two commitments mean a non-discriminatory policy towards all companies within the European Union,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.

The Turkish government has ruled out an embargo, but hinted that a boycott against French goods is not out of the question. “There will be an effect on consumer preferences,” said Turkish Science, Technology and Industry Minister Nihat Ergün.

Burcuoğlu spoke to reporters upon his return from Paris. He flew to Turkey on Friday after he was recalled indefinitely to Ankara for consultation. His return to Ankara is one of several measures against France that was announced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday.

Erdoğan said Turkey was cancelling all economic, political and military meetings with its NATO partner and said it would deny permission for French military planes to land and for warships to dock in Turkey.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppe, speaking to journalists after the vote, urged Turkey not to overreact to the assembly decision, calling for “good sense and moderation.”

Burcuoğlu said the Turkish Embassy in Paris has received calls of support from an unexpectedly high number of people, including from French citizens of North African origin. He also said he was proud of some 5,000 Turks who exercised their right to demonstrate in front of the French parliament on Thursday to protest the bill.

The ambassador also noted France has not recalled its envoy from Turkey. The French ambassador in Ankara left Turkey this week, raising speculation in the Turkish media that his departure was linked with tensions over the “genocide” bill.

Burcuoğlu said the French envoy left for France for Christmas.

via Turkey to abide by WTO norms in French boycott.

December 24, 2011
Turkey’s pressure will not last long

There will not be great changes in relations between Armenia and Turkey and between the Armenian and Turkish communities of France, Provence-Marseille University Professor Patrick Donabedian stated, in an interview with RFI Radio, commenting on the likely impact of the final adoption, in France, of the bill that criminalizes the denial of genocides.

“France would be more at ease in the sense that the Armenians, to some extent, would be free of those wounds that are created every time when they brazenly deny the existence of this historical fact. And I believe Turkey’s pressure would not last long. What’s important is that the pressure exerted on Turkey must be very strong so that official Ankara would ultimately accept the historicity of the Armenian people’s extermination,” Patrick Donabedian said.

He also noted that the Armenian community of France reacted to passing of the aforesaid bill with “joy, relief, and a sense triumph.”

And speaking about the matter of teaching the Armenian Genocide as a course in France, the Professor said: “There are facts which are corroborated and are apparent for all noble historians. There is scholarly work, history; there are confirmed facts. There is but one history, and nothing changes in the teaching of this history in France. Let us hope this would be the case in Turkey proper, too.”

“Today’s Turks are not to be blamed that they were deceived all through the 20th Century. Now lot has to be done inside Turkey so that truth is finally restored and the Armenian Genocide is officially accepted in that country. I believe this will happen,” Patrick Donabedian stated.

To note, the French National Assembly passed Thursday the bill that criminalizes the denial of the Armenian Genocide. But the bill still needs to be approved by the French Senate, and the respective discussions could last several months.

via Turkey’s pressure will not last long – French-Armenian professor | Armenia News – NEWS.am.

December 24, 2011