Month: October 2006

HUNDREDS RALLY IN ISTANBUL AGAINST FRANCE’S ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL

Agence France Presse — English
October 14, 2006 Saturday 3:51 PM GMT

Several hundred people rallied outside France’s consulate in Istanbul
on Saturday to protest at the French parliament’s support for a bill
that would make it a crime to deny that Turks committed genocide
against Armenians in the early 20th century.

Riot police stood by in the city centre district of Beyoglu for
demonstrations organised separately by left-wing and right-wing
nationalist parties.

Brandishing Turkish flags, the left-wing nationalists called on Turks
to boycott French products. The right-wingers also accused the Turkish
government of not responding forcibly enough.

The French parliament on Thursday approved on first reading a bill that
would make it a jailable offence to deny that the 1915-17 massacres
of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide.

The bill still needs the approval of the Senate, or upper house of
parliament, and the president to take effect.

Turkey, which strongly rejects the use of the term genocide in the
sensitive Armenian issue, strngly criticised the vote, saying France
had dealt "a heavy blow" to longstanding bilateral relations.

The government has threatened retaliatory measures if the bill
becomes law.

FRENCH PRESIDENT SORRY OVER ADOPTION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL

Xinhua General News Service
October 15, 2006 Sunday 6:00 AM EST

French President Jacques Chirac expressed his regret over adoption of a
bill that would make it a crime to deny the alleged Armenian genocide,
Turkey’s semi- official Anatolia news agency reported on Sunday.

Chirac made the regret on Saturday evening over a telephone call
to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying that he was
sorry over the adoption of the Armenian genocide bill in the French
National Assembly.

"I am very sorry over the initiative of the French National Assembly.

I understand your feelings and furthermore I share them, " Chirac
was quoted as saying.

The report said that Chirac noted this was a development pertaining
to the upcoming general elections in France, vowing that he would do
his best to prevent the bill to become a law.

The French president said the adoption of the bill would not affect
Turkey’s negotiations with the European Union (EU), reiterating his
support to Turkey’s EU process.

Erdogan, for his part, briefed Chirac the indignation of the Turkish
people and his government, underscoring that the bill contradicted
freedom of speech principle in the French constitution.

On Thursday, the French National Assembly adopted a bill calling for
up to a year in prison and fines of up to 56,000 U.S. dollars for
anyone who denies the Armenian genocide in the early 20th century.

The bill must be passed by the Senate and signed by French President
Jacques Chirac. However, business and consumer groups in Turkey have
threatened to boycott French products.

Turkey, which is facing increasing pressure from the EU to fully
acknowledge the killings, has always denied that up to 1.5 million
Armenians were subjected to genocide.

But Turkey does acknowledge that up to 300,000 Armenians died during
fighting and efforts to relocate populations away from the war zone
in eastern Turkey.

FRENCH PRESIDENT CALLS TURKISH PREMIER, REGRETS BILL ON ARMENIAN CLAIMS

Anatolia news agency, Ankara,
15 Oct 06

Ankara, 15 October: French President Jacques Chirac on Saturday
[14 October] evening telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and said he was sorry over adoption of a bill in the French
National Assembly that would make it a crime to deny so-called
Armenian genocide.

It was reported that Chirac told Erdogan that this was a development
pertaining to the upcoming general elections in France and noted that
he would do his best to prevent the bill to become a law.

Turkish PM Erdogan in is part explained Chirac the indignation in the
Turkish government and public, and noted: "We should never sacrifice
our bilateral relations to politics."

Chirac said: "I am very sorry over the initiative of the French
National Assembly. I understand your feelings and furthermore I
share them."

Chirac said any change in positive relations between Turkey and France
was out of question.

Erdogan recalled that he had launched necessary initiatives to prevent
this development.

Erdogan indicated that Turkish public reacted against the remarks
of Chirac on so-called Armenian genocide during his visit to
Armenia. He said statements of Chirac, particularly establishing
relationship between Turkey’s EU membership and baseless allegations
were criticized.

"It is impossible for us to accept this stance of you," Erdogan said.

Chirac said the development in the French parliament would not affect
Turkey’s negotiations with the EU.

Erdogan underscored that the bill contradicted freedom of speech
principle in the French constitution, and noted that it was not
possible to explain this to Turkish people with logical reasons.

Erdogan also said: "This is a problem between Turkey and Armenia. We
felt upset that the researches that have to be carried out by
historians were made a matter of politics."

Erdogan asked French President Chirac to prevent the bill to become
a law.

Chirac reaffirmed that he would continue to support Turkey’s EU
process, and noted that he would do his best to prevent Turkish-French
relations to be damaged in the sensitive political atmosphere.

TURKISH GENERAL STAFF SAYS SHOTS FIRED ON BORDER TROOPS FROM ARMENIA

Anatolia news agency, Turkey
Oct 13 2006

Ankara, 13 October: "Turkish soldiers came under harassing fire from
Armenian territories on the Turkey-Armenia border on 11 October 2006,"
the Turkish General Staff said on Friday [13 October].

According to the General Staff, two shots were fired on Turkish
soldiers from Armenia.

Turkish General Staff has informed the Turkish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and asked it to take appropriate action on the border incident.

There were no casualties or property damage due to the harassing fire
from Armenia.

FRENCH FIRMS SET TO SUFFER FROM TURKISH ANGER OVER ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL
by Burak Akinci

Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday 3:20 AM GMT

With perhaps an eye on Turkey’s precarious bid to join the European
Union, Turkish officials have so far rejected calls for an out-and-out
boycott of French goods to protest a bill making it a crime to deny
Turks committed genocide against Armenians in World War I.

But the government is still weighing other responses which may hit
French firms, from blocking the country’s defence and energy companies
from bidding for multi-million euro (dollar) contracts to the more
symbolic, such as lawmakers replacing their official Peugeot cars.

And although an official ban is unlikely, consumers and businesses
are set to cold-shoulder French goods, nearly five billion euros
(6.25 billion dollars) worth of which entered Turkey last year.

Last Thursday the French National Assembly, the lower house, passed
a bill making it a crime to deny that the 1915-1917 massacres of
Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide.

The bill, which stipulates a prison sentence of up to three years and
a fine of up to 45,000 euros, must be approved by the French upper
house and by President Jacques Chirac before it becomes law.

The result has been widespread dismay, not only in Turkey — several
hundred people rallied outside France’s consulate in Istanbul Saturday
— but also from French historians and European Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso.

Turkey says 300,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in
civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence and sided
with invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire fell apart during
World War I.

But it refuses to accept this was genocide.

Armenians, who constitute a sizeable minority in France, say up to 1.5
million of their forbears were slaughtered in orchestrated killings,
which they maintain can only be seen as genocide.

In 2005 France and Turkey exchanged goods worth more than eight billion
euros, and French imports to Turkey were worth 4.7 billion euros.

Commercial ties between the two countries run deep. Some 250 French
companies have strong links with Turkey stretching back many years.

Carmaker Renault, for example, employs hundreds of people at a factory
in the northwest of the country.

As a result Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, together
with the country’s more liberal newspapers, has appealed for calm
and not to launch a campaign which might end up hurting Turks more
than the French.

"What do we have to win or lose by boycotting products? … We should
consider that with a great deal of caution," Erdogan said on Friday,
adding that his government would proceed with calm.

Lutfu Yenel, head of the Turkish affiliate of French telecoms group
Alcatel, said he was astounded by calls for a boycott of his company.

But although an official ban is unlikely, Turkish consumers and
businesses are expected to vent their anger by not buying French.

The country’s consumer organisation, for instance, has said that a
boycott would begin at the 500 petrol stations in Turkey owned by
France’s Total.

Every week there would be an appeal to boycott products from a new
French firm until the genocide bill is scrapped, the organisation
threatened.

"From today onwards, we are going to boycott every week a French
brand and show our reaction in a language that France can understand,"
said Bulent Deniz, the group’s president.

In some commercial centres in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, shops
were calling on Turks not to buy French — although it was business
as usual at an outlet of French chain Lacoste in the city.

Ankara’s union of traders has also decided to post on billboards
in the capital pictures of products that will be boycotted such as
perfumes and cosmetics, the group’s head Mehmet Yiginer said.

And across the country, commercial groups and businessmen have called
on their fellow citizens to cold-shoulder French brands.

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.

TURKISH BUSINESS URGES CALM OVER FRANCE’S ARMENIA BILL
by Burak Akinci

Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday

Turkish consumers were advised Sunday to cool their anger over the
French parliament’s decision to criminalize denial that Armenian
massacres during World War I constituted genocide.

The appeals for calm from prominent business leaders came after French
President Jacques Chirac distanced himself from the parliamentary
measure.

The vice-president of the powerful Union of Chambers of Commerce and
Bourses (TOBB), Huseyin Uzulmez, warned against a wide-scale consumer
boycott that could have a major impact on economic relations, amounting
to eight billion euros (10 billion dollars) in two-way trade last year.

"We should not be too exaggerated in our reaction," he said,
according to the Anatolia news agency, and called on shoppers to
"use their reason."

The president of the Council of Chambers of Commerce and Industry,
Nafi Gural, said that to protest against France, "a boycott is perhaps
a sentimental rather than a logical decision."

Turks were outraged by the decision of the French National Assembly on
Thursday to pass a bill making it a crime to deny that the 1915-1917
massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide —
stipulating a prison sentence of up to three years and a 45,000-euro
fine for transgressors.

But the bill still must be approved by the chamber of deputies in
a second reading, by the senate and by Chirac, who called Erdogan
Saturday to express "regrets" over the vote, according to the prime
minister.

A source close to the prime minister said Erdogan had called on Chirac
to annul the measure, which offends Turkey’s sense of history.

The Turks do not deny that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were
massacred after they took up arms for independence and sided with
invading Russian troops as the Ottoman Empire fell apart. But they
say this was a tragedy of war in which equally as many Turks died,
and deny that the killings constituted deliberate genocide.

The National Assembly vote was heavily influenced by the large Armenian
minority living in France.

Chirac’s staff confirmed that the president had discussed the issue
with Erdogan, and said that he had stood by a statement he made when
he visited Armenia on October 1, in which he reaffirmed the French
positions that the massacres constituted genocide but stressed the
inutility of the vote by the National Assembly.

"France has fully recognized the tragedy of the genocide and all the
rest is more like polemics than legislative reality," he had said in
Yerevan. During his trip to Armenia, he also said Turkey needed to
recognize the 1915-1917 massacres as genocide before it joins the EU,
and added it would become stronger thereby.

Nevertheless, Chirac’s use of the word "regrets" was interpreted by
the newspaper Radikal as a sign of appeasement. "Chirac gives hope,"
the newspaper headlined.

Turkish officials have resisted calls for an outright boycott of
French goods with perhaps an eye on the country’s precarious bid to
join the European Union.

Commercial ties between the two countries run deep. Some 250 French
companies have strong links with Turkey stretching back many years.

Automaker Renault, for example, employs hundreds of people at a
factory in the northwest of the country.

Lutfu Yenel, head of the Turkish affiliate of French telecoms group
Alcatel, said he was astounded by calls for a boycott of his company.

But although an official ban is unlikely, Turkish consumers and
businesses were expected to vent their anger by not buying French.

The country’s consumer organization, for instance, has said that
a boycott would begin at the 500 gas stations in Turkey owned by
France’s Total.

Every week there would be an appeal to boycott products from a new
French firm until the genocide bill is scrapped, the organization
threatened.

POLITICS LOOMS IN PAMUK’S NOBEL SPEECH

Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday

Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author who has won this year’s Nobel prize
for literature, plans to use his acceptance speech to explain his
views on several subjects, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Sunday.

Pamuk told the news weekly he was preparing "a thought piece in the
good European tradition" for delivery when he accepts the award from
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10.

"For the moment I am thinking of making it in the form of an essay,"
he said.

"I plan to use the opportunity to put across my point of view on
several issues," he added, but declined to reveal the content of
the speech.

Pamuk, 54, on Thursday became the first Turkish writer to win the
prestigious prize.

The politically outspoken author, whose books focus on Turkey’s
struggle between Islam and secularism and its ties to Europe, has
clashed frequently with the Turkish establishment.

Pamuk was put on trial after telling a Swiss newspaper last year that
30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians had been killed during World
War I under the Ottoman Turks.

But the case was dropped after it drew widespread international
protest.

FRENCH POLICE MYSTIFIED AFTER THEFT OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MONUMENT

Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday

Police said on Sunday that they had no leads following the theft
of an Armenian genocide monument in a southwestern Paris suburb the
previous night.

The 300 kilogram (660 pound) bronze statue was stolen two days after
the French national assembly voted to make denial of the Armenian
genocide illegal, but a connection between the two events has not
been established.

"We have no idea if this is a political statement or simply crooks
wanting to resell the metal. Either way, it is a despicable act,"
Jean Levain, Mayor of Chaville, told AFP on Sunday.

Police in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine, were expected to view on Monday
tapes from security cameras at the location where the crime occurred.

There was no vandalism or message at the scene, the municipality said.

The Armenian community in Chaville was "shocked and outraged", said
Hirant Norcen, vice-president of the Cultural Association of the
Armenian Church in Chaville.

"Whatever the reason for the theft, it is still unacceptable,"
Norcen said.

A silent march lasting several minutes after a mass and the laying
of a wreath were organised for Sunday midday.

Jean-Jacques Guillet, a regional assembly member, expressed his
"indignation" and declared that "the irresponsible barbarism which
violated this symbol of remembrance should be punished ruthlessly."

The Armenian community gave the monument, valued by the municipality
at 50,000 euros (60,000 dollars), to the city in 2002 in memory of
the 1915-1917 massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY SAID SCEPTICAL ON CHIRAC’S ASSURANCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAW

TRT 2 television, Ankara,
16 Oct 06

[Studio announcer] A cautious approach is maintained on the impression
President Chirac created during his telephone conversation with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the effect that he will not sign the
law on the so-called Armenian genocide claims. Speaking on the matter
after the Council of Ministers meeting today, Government Spokesman
Cemil Cicek said that such a bill reaching this stage is enough for
us to be sceptical.

[Cicek] Esteemed Chirac is in office today. But, he might not be
there tomorrow. Someone else might be in his office. The matter is
not one that will exist for only day or a week. We have to closely
follow it. We have to completely remove the lie. We have to inform
everyone that it is a lie. So, we cannot ignore the problem just
because such a statement has been made. In other words, we cannot
view such an individual statement as a guarantee.