Tag: “Genocide” Resolution

  • Oppose AJR 2: A racist resolution in California influenced by Armenian Lobby

    Oppose AJR 2: A racist resolution in California influenced by Armenian Lobby

    Oppose AJR 2: A racist resolution in California

    influenced by Armenian Lobby

    california county mapDear Friends,

    On December 3, 2012, there was a swearing in ceremony in Sacramento, California for the incoming legislators. As soon as the ceremony was over, State Assemblymen Katcho Achadjian (an ethnic Armenian) and Mike Gatto introduced Assembly Joint Resolution 2, on, you guessed it, the alleged Armenian Genocide, for the millionth time!

    To these legislators, real issues like unemployment, healthcare, education, sluggish economy, national debt, fiscal cliff, and others simply do not seem to matter. They have a single issue and that’s that ! It is so important to them that it could not wait the second day of business in Sacramento.

    “We should be just as swift and take action against AJR 2 via a PaxTurcica CapWiz” said Ergun Kırlıkovalı, the president of ATAA. He added: “Deceived by Armenian lobby, AJR 2 seeks California Assembly to legislate the Armenian version of history. Based on a long discredited political claim of genocide, without any historical or legal substantiation, AJR 2 deliberately misrepresents World War I era inter-communal atrocities in the Ottoman Empire and calls upon the U.S. Government and Congress to do the same.”

    Today, there is something you can do to fight such unprovoked defamation, unjustified demonization, and relentless ethno-religious discrimination embodied in racist and dishonest Armenian resolutions like AJR 2.

    Just click on this link and take action via PaxTurcica CapWiz now:

    It will only take 5 minutes of your time and you will not have to leave the comfort of your home or office.

    Please select five items form the media list at a time; click send.

    Then hit “back arrow” to mark another set of five newspapers from the list.

    Thus, within five minutes, you can reach many newspapers that will learn your point of view.

    Some newspapers may even run your message.

    And please, tell a friend!

    The ATAA, representing over 60 local chapters and 500,000 Turkish Americans throughout the United States, serves locally and nationwide to develop an informed and empowered Turkish American community, and to support strong U.S.-Turkish relations. The ATAA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed under the laws of the District of Columbia. To learn more about ATAA, please visit us at www.ataa.org

    via Oppose AJR 2: A racist resolution in California influenced by Armenian Lobby

  • Sarkozy: Turkey Cannot Teach France Any “Lessons”

    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.

  • Turkey cuts some ties with ‘racist’ France over genocide law

    Turkey cuts some ties with ‘racist’ France over genocide law

    By Agence France-Presse

    A woman holding the Turkish and French flags takes part in a rally next to the French National Assembly in Paris. Photo: AFP.

    Turkey reacted with fury Thursday to a vote by French lawmakersto outlaw denial of the Armenian genocide, immediately cutting military ties and warning of “irreparable damage” to relations.

    “This is politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia,” thundered Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ordering home Ankara’s ambassador to Paris and banning political visits between the two NATO allies.

    “From now on we are revising our relations with France,” he added. “There was no genocide committed in our history. We do not accept this.”

    Turkey will rule on a case-by-case basis on any request made by France to use Turkish airspace or military bases and will reject any French demand for its military vessels to dock at Turkish ports, he said.

    He said Turkey would boycott a joint economic committee meeting in Paris in January, a move that will worry business leaders in both countries, fearful for the fate of 12 billion euros in annual trade between the two powers.

    Erdogan accused France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy of pandering to domestic voters, hundreds of thousands of whom are ofArmenian descent, and warned that these measures were the first in an escalating scale of sanctions.

    “History and people will never forgive those exploiting historical facts to achieve political ends,” said Erdogan, reflecting a view of Sarkozy’s motives that is shared by many of his domestic critics.

    Sarkozy’s government has insisted the law was a parliamentary idea, but it was drafted by members of his UMP party and was passed in the first of a series of votes by a small number of lawmakers in a sparsely attended house.

    In Paris, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe’s office issued a statement to “express regret” over Erdogan’s decision and calling for dialogue.

    “Turkey is an ally of France and a strategic partner,” Juppe said, citing work done by the states in NATO and the G20 to address the crisis in Syria, bring peace to Afghanistan and develop security in the Mediterranean.

    “It is important in the current context to keep open all paths to dialogue and cooperation,” he said, having earlier urged Turkey not to “overreact”.

    The National Assembly voted to approve a first reading of a law that would ban anyone from denying that the 1915 killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces amount to genocide.

    Supporters argue that the law — which will impose a 45,000 euro fine and a one-year jail term on genocide deniers — is an overdue measure to protect the memory of one of the 20th century’s worst massacres.

    But Turkey argues that Armenia’s estimate of 1.5 million dead is exaggerated and that the deaths were caused by World War I fighting.

    The Turkish embassy in Paris said its ambassador had been recalled and would leave Friday, and angry crowds in Ankara chanted: “We have not committed genocide, we defended the homeland. Wait for us France, we will come.”

    The draft law will now be debated by the Senate and parliamentary committees, and may be enacted early next year.

    “We’re not trying to write history but to make an indispensable political act,” Patrick Devedjian, a lawmaker of Armenian descent, told parliament. “Now, Turkey is falling into revisionism and denies its own history.”

    The debate was held under tight security, after around 4,000 Turkish expatriates living in France gathered outside parliament to protest.

    France is home to around 500,000 citizens of Armenian descent and they are seen as a key source of support for Sarkozy and the UMP ahead of presidential and legislative elections in April and June next year.

    Sarkozy’s main opponent in the upcoming vote, Socialist flag-bearer Francois Hollande, denounced the genocide bill as a cynical “electoral operation” and predicted it would never clear both houses of parliament before the vote.

    Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed during World War I by the forces of Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire.

    Turkey disputes the figure, arguing that only 500,000 died, and denies this was genocide, ascribing the toll to fighting and starvation during World War I and accusing the Armenians of siding with Russian invaders.

    Franco-Turkish relations are often tense — Sarkozy is a firm opponent of allowing Turkey to join the European Union — but 1,000 French firms work there and trade between the two is worth 12 billion euros per year.

    Much of Europe, including France, is facing recession amid a sovereign debt crisis, but Turkey enjoys growth rates in excess of eight percent and, with 78 million people, it is a huge potential market.

    Agence France-Presse

    Agence France-Presse

    AFP journalists cover wars, conflicts, politics, science, health, the environment, technology, fashion, entertainment, the offbeat, sports and a whole lot more in text, photographs, video, graphics and online.

    via Turkey cuts some ties with ‘racist’ France over genocide law | The Raw Story.

  • Turkey set for spat with France over “genocide” bill

    Turkey set for spat with France over “genocide” bill

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    Turkish riot police block a road leading to the French Embassy in Ankara, during a demonstration by protesters against a proposed French draft law making it illegal to deny the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was genocide, December 16, 2011. (REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

    PARIS/ANKARA – Relations between France and rising regional power Turkey are likely to nose-dive after a vote in the French parliament on Thursday that would make it a crime to deny that the 1915 mass killing of Armenians was genocide.

    Faced with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s open hostility to Turkey’s all-but stagnant bid to join the European Union, and buoyed by a fast-growing economy, Ankara has little to lose by picking a political fight with Paris.

    With Turkey taking an increasingly pivotal and influential role in the Middle East, especially over Syria, Iran and Libya, France could experience some diplomatic discomfort, and French firms could lose out on lucrative Turkish contracts.

    Even though nearly 100 years have passed since the killings that coincided with World War One, successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the charge of genocide is a direct insult to their nation.

    Turkish leaders also argue that the bill, proposed by 40 deputies from Sarkozy’s party, is a blatant attempt at winning the votes of 500,000 ethnic Armenians in France in next year’s elections, limits freedom of speech and is an unnecessary meddling by politicians in a business best left to historians.

    “This proposed law targets and is hostile to the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish nation and the Turkish community living in France,” Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan wrote in a tersely worded letter to Sarkozy last week.

    “I want to state clearly that such steps will have grave consequences for future relations between Turkey and France in political, economic, cultural and all areas,” he said.

    The volume of trade between France and Turkey from January to November this year was more than $13.5 billion, according to Turkish government statistics. France is Turkey’s fifth biggest export market and the sixth biggest source of its imports.

    FRENCH FIRMS FACE LOSSES

    The French government has stressed that the bill, which mandates a 45,000-euro fine and a year in jail for offenders, is not its own initiative and pointed out that Turkey cannot impose unilateral trade sanctions.

    “We have to remember international rules and with regard to Turkey it’s a member of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) 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 has hinted at a boycott. “There will be an effect on consumer preferences,” said Turkish Industry Minister Nihat Ergun.

    Others went further and suggested French firms might lose out in profitable defense deals and contracts to build energy pipelines and Turkey’s first nuclear power station.

    “France is about to commit a political sin. Newly arising French-Turkish ties in the energy sector may not be in a position to overcome this,” state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Energy Minister Taner Yildiz as saying.

    When France passed a law recognizing the killing of Armenians as genocide in 2001, Turkey was in the midst of an economic crisis, and reacted in a similar vein, but figures show trade between the two countries nevertheless grew steadily.

    The French lower house of parliament first passed a bill criminalizing the denial of an Armenian genocide in 2006, but it was finally rejected by the Senate in May of this year.

    The new bill was made more general to outlaw the denial of any genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing the Turks. While it is very likely to be approved by the lower house, it could also face a long passage into law, though its backers want to see it completed before April’s French presidential election.

    Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says some 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman Empire.

    Ankara denies the killings constitute genocide and says many Muslim Turks and Kurds were also put to death as Russian troops invaded eastern Anatolia, often aided by Armenian militias.

    CONFIDENT TURKEY

    The Republic of Turkey emerged from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 after more than 10 years of almost continual warfare against the British, French, Russians, Arabs, Armenians and Greeks, all of them intent on carving off territory from the dying state.

    After war, massacres, famine and massive population movements, the new republic was much more religiously and ethnically homogenous than ever before and Turkey’s new leaders pursued a secular nationalism that turned its back on the past.

    “The problem is that the Turkish people don’t know what happened,” said Cengiz Aktar, professor of political science at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University.

    While folk memories of the trauma survive in the villages of eastern Turkey, the education system has always set out to deny any official policy to kill off the Armenians, instead painting a picture of valiant Turks emerging victorious from onslaughts on all sides from treacherous former friends and allies.

    The French bill feeds into the sense that many Turks have that they are unwanted by an arrogant Europe and fires up nationalist fervor, though in a more self-confident Turkey, Turkish popular reaction has been more muted than in the past.

    Francois Rochebloine, president of the Franco-Armenian friendship group in the French lower house and a leading proponent of the bill, said he did not expect any lasting repercussions.

    “These pressures already existed when France in 2001 recognized the Armenia genocide,” said Rochebloine. At that time, he said, “we received two cubic meters of mail and faxes (opposing it), but life continued and Turkey is not mad.”

    But the Turkey of 2011 is a very different place from 10 years ago.

    “Today, unfortunately (Turkey’s) EU process … is almost dead and Turkey’s hands are not tied anymore. Turkey’s economy is one of the strongest in the world so for this Turkey, one should make a different calculation,” Volkan Bozkir, the head of Turkey’s Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, said in Paris after lobbying French officials.

    (Agencies)

  • Armenian patriarchate in Istanbul against Armenian resolution discussion in France?

    Armenian patriarchate in Istanbul against Armenian resolution discussion in France?

    86600ISTANBUL. – Archbishop Aram Ateshian at the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul stated that bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide at the French Parliament will damage Armenian-Turkish relations.

    Archbishop stated that future of the Armenian-Turkish relations should not be shadowed by the [1915] painful events.

    “It will damage friendship of Armenian and Turkish people,” Ateshian added.

    via Armenian patriarchate in Istanbul against Armenian resolution discussion in France? | Armenia News – NEWS.am.

  • French Genocide Bill Infuriates Turkey

    French Genocide Bill Infuriates Turkey

    Turkey’s prime minister on Saturday sharply criticized France for a bill that would make it a crime to deny the World War I-era mass killing of Armenians was genocide.

    Saying France should investigate what he claimed was its own “dirty and bloody history” in Algeria and Rwanda, Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Turkey would respond “through all kinds of diplomatic means.”

    Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks as their Empire collapsed, an event many international experts regard as genocide and that France recognized as such in 2001. Turkish leaders reject the term, arguing that the toll is inflated, that there were deaths on both sides and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

    On Dec. 22, the lower house of French Parliament will debate a proposal that would make denying that the massacre was genocide punishable by up to a year in prison and euro45,000 ($58,500) in fines, putting it on par with Holocaust denial, which was banned in the country in 1990.

    Erdogan lashed out at France during a joint news conference with Mustafa Abdul-Jalil — the chairman of Libya’s National Transitional Council saying there were reports that France was responsible for the deaths of 45,000 people in Algeria in 1945 and for the massacre of up to 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994.

    “No historian, no politician can see genocide in our history,” Erdogan said. “Those who do want to see genocide should turn around and look at their own dirty and bloody history.”

    “The French National Assembly should shed light on Algeria, it should shed light on Rwanda,” he said, in his first news conference since recovering from surgery three weeks ago.

    France had troops in Rwanda, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused the country of doing little to stop the country’s genocide.

    There was no immediate reaction from France. Ties between the two countries are already strained by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

    Erdogan’s criticism comes a day after an official said the Turkish leader had written to Sarkozy warning of grave consequences if the Armenian genocide bill is adopted. A Turkish diplomat said Turkey would withdraw its ambassador to France is the law is passed.

    “I hope that the [French Parliament] steps back from the error of misrepresenting history and of punishing those who deny the historic lies,” Erdogan said. “Turkey will stand against this intentional, malicious, unjust and illegal attempt through all kinds of diplomatic means.”

    Erdogan called the proposed bill a “populist” act, suggesting it was aimed at winning the votes of Armenian-French in elections in France next year.

    A Turkish parliamentary delegation is scheduled to travel to France on Sunday to lobby French legislators against the bill.

    Turkey has long argued that parliaments should not be left the task of deciding whether the killings constituted genocide, insisting on the creation of a joint independent committee of historians to look into the events that started in 1915.

    Several countries have recognized the killings as genocide, including Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Russia, Canada, Lebanon, Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Vatican, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus.

    In 2007, a Swiss court convicted a Turkish politician under its anti-racism law and fined him for denying that the killings of Armenians was genocide. The case caused diplomatic tensions between Switzerland and Turkey.

    via French Genocide Bill Infuriates Turkey : NPR.