FRANCE’S CHIRAC ENDS ARMENIA TRIP WITH VISIT TO RELIGIOUS LEADER
Agence France Presse — English
October 1, 2006 Sunday 10:24 AM GMT
French President Jacques Chirac departed for Paris on Sunday after
ending a two-day state visit to Yerevan by meeting with Armenia’s
top religious leader.
Chirac made a morning visit to His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme
Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, signing the religious
leader’s guest book "in memory of this moving visit to the spiritual
heart of Armenia and the great Armenian people".
A large part of Chirac’s visit to the impoverished moutain republic
was devoted to commemorating the World War I-era massacres of hundreds
of thousands of Armenians, which Armenia says was genocide at the
hands of the Ottoman Turks.
Chirac began his visit with a stop at a memorial to the 1915-1917
killings, and afterward told journalists that Turkey ought to recognize
the event as genocide if it wants to join the European Union.
"Honestly, I believe so," Chirac said in response to a question on
the topic. "All countries grow up acknowledging their dramas and
their errors."
France, with 400,000 citizens of Armenian descent, officially
recognized the events as genocide in 2001, putting a strain on
relations with Turkey.
Previously, however, France had refused to make a direct link between
the genocide issue and Turkey’s EU membership bid. The bloc of 25
nations has not made it a condition.
Armenia has campaigned for Turkey to acknowledge the killings, in
which it says 1.5 million Armenians died, as genocide.
But Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks
died in an internal conflict sparked by attempts by Armenians to win
independence in eastern Anatolia.
Chirac also met with his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian during
the two-day visit and attended a concert at which veteran French
singer and movie star Charles Aznavour, who is of Armenian origin,
launched a series of events called "A Year of Armenia in France".