Author: Kalantarian Kevo

TODAY, TURKEY TO DECLARE PUNISHMENT FOR FRANCE

Azerbaijan Business Center
Jan 24 2012

Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Hopes for a common sense of the French Senate
failed as the belief in a flat earth.

Yesterday by 127 votes “for” with 86 votes “against” the French Senate
approved a bill criminalizing denial of Armenian genocide in 1915-17 in
the Ottoman Empire. Now French President Nicolas Sarkozy has 15 days
to sign the bill. Given the Sarkozy’s statements and the fact that
the bill was introduced by his party “Union for a Popular Movement,”
the approval of the law can hardly be doubted.

Already today, Turkey, as a successor to the Ottoman Empire, will
announce its official response to the actions of France. Meanwhile,
Turkish Foreign Ministry said that France violated international law
by its irresponsible decision and announced that the country would
not hesitate in applying those measures that it deems appropriate
and which are thought out in advance.

Whatever it was, the adoption of this bill is the biggest in modern
history, Turkey’s foreign policy defeat. In addition to the formal
political troubles, the new French law almost completely closes the
road for Turkey in the European Union. The latter, even without that,
did not wait in its member ranks the second, after Russia, Euro-Asian
power, and now actually Turkey was put in the position of Serbia, by
placing deliberately unacceptable political ultimatum. What is today
France believes “genocide” was actually a process of transformation
of super-ethnic nature of the Ottoman Empire in the national Turkish
Republic. Without events in 1915-23 there would be no Turkey in the
modern sense.

TURKEY-ARMENIA RELATIONS MORE ‘IMPORTANT’ THAN ‘GENOCIDE’ LAW

EuroNews

Jan 24 2012
France

At a protest outside the French consulate in Istanbul, Turkish people
unhappy at the passing of the French ‘genocide bill’ vented their
anger. One banner called the Armenian genocide a French imperial lie.

National newspapers condemned the law that will make it illegal to
deny the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide.

There are around 70,000 ethnic Armenians living in Turkey. Their
reactions have been more muted than those seen on the streets of
Yerevan.

The Armenians living in Turkey have bigger concerns, according to
Ara Kochunyan, a journalist who works for Armenian-language newspaper
Jamanak.

“The importance of France or the importance of this decision doesn’t
change a single fact in this matter. The law being passed by the French
Senate doesn’t directly affect what is important – the relationship
between Turkey and Armenia. This is a bilateral question between Turks
and Armenians and it should be resolved accordingly,” said Kochunyan.

Meanwhile, riot police stood by while the radical right-wing
Felicity Party made a statement outside the French embassy in Ankara,
reiterating a familiar message coming from Turkey – that France has
supplanted historians by deciding what happened to the Armenians
was genocide.

‘TURKEY, FRANCE TENSIONS WILL GET WORSE’

Press TV
Jan 24 2012
Iran

Interview with Brent Budowsky, columnist with The Hill newspaper

France’s Senate has approved a controversial bill that makes it
illegal to deny as genocide the mass killings of Armenians during
Turkey’s Ottoman era.

The bill says anyone denying the deaths as genocide will face a year
in jail and a fine of 58 thousand dollars. The legislature needs
to be approved by President Nicolas Sarkozy to become law. France’s
lower house has already approved the bill.

Turkey has acknowledged the loss of Armenian lives, however, it says
the death toll is exaggerated and does not amount to genocide.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Brent Budowsky, a columnist
with The Hill newspaper, to share his thoughts on the issue. What
follows is the text of the interview:

Press TV: Where do you think the relationship between Turkey and
France is headed to now?

Budowsky: Well, it has gone from bad to worse right now. I hope there
is some way that the French can pull back a bit and that there can
be some accommodation. This is not a helpful move. Obviously the
French are having a presidential election soon and a lot of this is
based on the presidential election on politicking particularly by
Sarkozy’s government.

We will have an election here in the United States and as anyone
knows, it is getting pretty ugly here and politicians do things in
election years that are not good. Turkey is an important country;
Turkey is the crossroads of Europe in the Middle East; Turkey is
an important member of NATO; Turkey is an important country to the
future of Europe as well as the future of Middle East.

Obviously, between 500 thousand and 1.5 million Armenians died. It is
tragic; it was horrible; we wish it did not happen; we pray for them
and we wish them all well in Armenia today. But this was something
that came at a very bad time for political reasons.

There are big problems in the Middle East and in Europe and in the
world and to be diverting back to this kind of an issue right now in
such a divisive way is unhelpful. It will get worse unless the French
pull back which I hope they do and I hope some accommodation can be
reached that brings dignity to everybody.

Press TV: What kind of sanctions can Turkey impose on France, and
will France then impose sanctions against Turkey?

Budowsky: They can impose economic sanctions; they can pull back
from supporting an international news agency that the Turks are a
significant investor in; they can withdraw contacts both military
and economic and civilian.

Then the French will probably try not to retaliate but might have to.
It is important that everybody calm down and it is important that
everybody pull back and I believe that France has to make the first
move in pulling back because they took this action that has inflamed
the situation that does not help Armenia, does not help Turkey;
does not help France; does not help Europe; it does not help the world.

There are big problems that are immediate now and the people of
every one of those countries has a stake in solving those problems
from the Middle East right on across to France and this kind of a
controversy with more sanctions coming and sanctions in retaliation
and demonstrations from all people over an issue that goes back to
the early twentieth century does not help anyone.

And it would be in the interest of everybody involved to pull back
but the answer to your question is this keeps going forward; it will
get worse and there will be worse relations between all of these
countries and that is not helpful to any of these countries.

Press TV: If this situation does get worse, what impact will you say
this have on Turkey’s bid to join the EU?

Budowsky: Obviously, it will not increase the chances that Turkey
wants to be in or that the EU would put it in. But this gets back to
the point I made earlier. The European Union has tremendous serious
major financial, economic and political problems right now. Turkey,
it would be nice if it was one of many solutions to these.

There are much more important countries that can be even bigger
solutions. But at this moment in the history of Europe, the last thing
that Europe needs is this kind of a controversy. The very question of
economic stability, democracy, jobs, hope, opportunity and poverty, all
of these issues in Europe right now are hanging in the balance because
of a financial crisis that is devastating and that is hurting people.

That is what they should be working on now, not debating issues,
whatever the merits that the historians could debate from a hundred
years ago.

FRENCH GENOCIDE VOTE HISTORIC: ARMENIA

Financial Express Bangladesh

Jan 24 2012

YEREVAN, Jan 24, (agencies): The French Senate’s vote to approve a
bill outlawing denial of the Armenian genocide is a historic move
that will help prevent crimes against humanity, Armenia’s foreign
ministry said Tuesday.

“This day will be written in gold not only in the history of friendship
between the Armenian and French peoples, but also in the annals of
the history of the protection of human rights worldwide,” Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a statement.

The vote “will further consolidate the existing mechanisms of
prevention of crimes against humanity,” the statement said.

Armenia and its large diaspora around the world has long campaigned
for international recognition of the killings during World War I as
genocide, despite strong denials from Turkey.

The issue has poisoned relations between the two neighbours whose
mutual border remains closed, and still inspires intense feelings
among Armenians.

Nalbandian said that the French vote was the “logical continuation”
of France’s recognition of the mass killings as genocide in 2001.

FRENCH DRAFT LAW ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ROCKS FRANCO-TURKISH RELATIONS

TIME

Jan 24 2012

Anyone who hoped that calm and harmony might somehow prevail after
the passage of a French bill criminalizing denial of the 1915
genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was mightily disappointed
Monday night. Adoption of that draft legislation by France’s upper
house of parliament late Monday sparked immediate outrage and protest
from Turkey-and considerable concern about how that dispute might
impact an array of critical international issues. The resumed uproar
surrounding the pending French law means already strained relations
between France and Turkey are likely to decay even more in the coming
days and months-and at the very time when Ankara’s role as a partner
with the European Union on hot topic dossiers like repression in
Syria and Iran’s nuclear program is more important than ever.

The bill passed France’s upper chamber Monday night in a 127 to 86
vote that crossed party lines-yet also united parliamentarians on
the left and right in opposition. That result sends the text towards
procedural clearance en route to becoming law, following its approval
by the lower house of parliament in December. The measure is worded
to criminalize and punish denial of any officially recognized genocide
with prison terms of up to a year, and fines of $59,000. But the fact
that a similar law particular to the Shoah has been in place since
1990 means the new bill’s intent is to extend those penalties to
negation of the mass killing of Armenians by Turks nearly a century
ago as well-an event France officially recognized as genocide in
2001. Around 20 other nations categorize the slaying of what many
historians generally calculate was 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-16 as
genocide, though fewer have also criminalized its denial. Turkey has
steadfastly rejected that the killing of Armenians was systematic,
and says those victims-often cited as 300,000 to 500,000-were among
the many people caught up in violence arising from Ottoman Empire’s
break-up at the end of World War I. Not surprisingly, the response
of the Turkish government, many of its citizens, and ethnic Turks
around the world was one of indignation and anger. Reiterating its
protests and threats when the measure passed France’s lower house
in December, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying
“Turkey is committed to taking all the necessary steps against this
unjust disposition, which reduces basic human values and public
conscience to nothing.” Officials in Ankara also indicated they’d
repeat their temporary December recall of Turkey’s ambassador from
Paris, and move beyond already suspended political, military, and
economic activities with France towards sterner measures. “You can
also expect that diplomatic relations now will be at the level of
charges d’affaires not ambassadors anymore.” Turkish Ambassador Tahsin
Burcuoglu told reporters in Paris after Monday’s vote.

Still, by Tuesday morning, some evidence had arisen to suggest that
though Ankara will register its anger and opposition to the French bill
in no uncertain terms, Turkey may decide to stop short of engaging in
a full diplomatic battle with Paris. ‘This is a re-emergence of the
mentality of the Middle Ages. History is not made in parliaments,”
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told legislators from his
AKP party Tuesday. “Our attitude will be one of reason and reserve,
we are still in a period of patience. We will plan our actions based
what happens next. Our sanctions will be step by step.”

If Erdogan’s comments seemed to clash with the more heated language
arising elsewhere in Turkey, he wasn’t alone in sounding a different
note from the prevailing chorus. Though its backers in France
hailed the French text as a logical step in treating all officially
recognized genocides in the same legal manner, it drew considerable
opposition and criticism from other quarters. Ethicists, historians,
and legislators have all expressed unease at seeing a parliament
create legally binding analyses and definitions of historical events.
Jean-Pierre Sueur, a member of Socialist-dominated upper house of
parliament, challenged the bill with the view “it isn’t the business
of the law, and especially criminal law, to interview in the field
of history and to rule in terms of historical truth.”

Similarly, respected historian and Green party legislator Esther
Benbassa argued “this hastily slapped together law will neither
aid recognition of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, nor help bring
together the Armenian and Turkish people.” But given Turkey’s
unwavering rejection of the genocide-and its position that such
a definition is an inexcusable insult to the nation’s honor-some
of the text’s backers said it was necessary to give France’s 2001
recognition of the Armenian genocide symbolic and legal sense in the
face of continuing denial of a tragic historical event. “The truth
is not always strong enough to conquer lies,” Socialist legislator
Yannick Vaugrenard told his upper house peers.

Be that as it may, many politicians and observers in France derided the
push to pass the bill as a heavy-handed electoral ploy by President
Nicolas Sarkozy and his fellow conservatives to prop up their troubled
outlook heading into general elections next spring. Those skeptics
say the text is aimed at endearing Sarkozy and the right to France’s
500,000-strong Armenian community-a claim Erdogan also nodded to in
responding to Monday’s vote.

“We will not allow anyone to use Turkey for political mileage,”
Erdogan told legislators. “I am addressing French politicians,
intellectuals and the French people from here: this verdict is a
massacre of freedom of expression.”

Though they didn’t go quite that far in their analysis of its motives,
even some of Sarkozy’s cabinet aired discomfort with the bill and
its possible consequences. During a Tuesday appearance on French TV
channel Canal Plus, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe lamented the vote as
“ill-timed”-a moderated echo of his reaction to the text in December
as “useless and counter-productive,” and incapable to “change minds in
Turkey.” But with the looming law nearly a done deal on Tuesday, Juppe
stressed the importance of France and Turkey to rise above the current
dispute and remain focused on wider, longer-term mutual objectives.

“We need good relations with (Turkey) and we need to get through this
excessive phase,” Juppe said. “We have very important economic and
trade ties. I hope the reality of the situation will not be usurped
by emotions.”

Juppe’s position reflects his concern over geopolitical problems
France and the European Union are seeking to deal with-in part by
relying on Turkey’s unique position as a bridge between Europe and
the Middle East. The push to pass a total EU embargo on Iranian oil
to increase pressure on Tehran to relinquish its nuclear development
program, for example, will need full Turkish support to have desired
impact. Meanwhile, Ankara’s support is vital to international – and
European- efforts to force Damascus to end its bloody repression of
pro-democracy protesters. (Turkey shares a 900 km border with Syria;
it has hosted Syrian opposition leaders as well as defectors from
the Syrian army.). And despite the hot reaction of Turks generally
to Monday’s French vote, Erdogan’s manner of protesting the bill
seemed to indicate he isn’t ready to throw the wider and more crucial
geopolitical baby out with the troubled bathwater of Franco-Turkish
relations.

“They are trying to woo votes by using enmity towards Turkey,” Erdogan
commented. “The decision by the French Senate does not exist as far
as we are concerned.”

-with reporting by Pelin Turgut/Istanbul

FRENCH ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL: A WASTE OF TIME POSING AS MORALITY

International Business Times

Jan 24 2012
UK

By William Dove: Subscribe to William’s RSS feed

Now that the French Parliament has passed a bill that will make denying
the Armenian genocide a crime punishable by a one year prison sentence
and a five figure fine, what other historical events is the nation
of liberty, equality and fraternity going to outlaw denying?

Will those who publicly doubt the moon landings have to watch what
they say in future? Will Charlie Sheen be required to be more discreet
about his views on 9/11 and should we abandon altogether the debate
on who discovered America first?

It’s lucky that there is such a thing as diplomatic immunity, as
presumably the first person to be arrested under this law would be the
Turkish ambassador to France, given that he represents a government
that refuses to accept that “genocide” is an appropriate description
of what happened to Armenians in the early 20th century.

Indeed one wonders what the point of this law is if it is not to
annoy Turkey. Is France currently being overrun by wild revisionist
historians? Is Marine le Pen making rabid anti-Armenian speeches? Not
noticeably in either instance

No it seems the only prominent organisation to deny or at least
downplay the Armenian genocide is the Turkish government itself, which
at present does not have to take orders, but is free to take offense
from, the French Parliament. So again what is the point of the law,
other than to make some vain politicians feel smug about their own
goodness, if it is not to wind up Turkey?

Rather than using the law to penalise cranks, some of them sinister,
why not bring the power of truth crashing down on those who would
attempt to resist it?

Britain’s very own Nick Griffin is a case in point. The leader of the
British National Party for a long period appeared to be a denier of
the Holocaust, he now tries to avoid the subject while occasionally
trying to downplay the numbers (which incidentally is what the Turkish
government does with the Armenians).

Although he once claimed that the reason he does not talk about his
views on the Holocaust is that European law forbids him to do so,
more likely the real reason is that he knows if he did air David
Irving type views he would be treated with even more contempt than
he already is, as most people accept the Holocaust happened.

Why is that? Is it because people are legally required to believe in
the Holocaust? No, quite obviously it is because the evidence is so
overwhelming that to deny it would be to fly in the face of reason.

If then the French Parliament feels so strongly about the Armenian
genocide instead of trying to ban dissenting viewpoints why don’t
they push to get this particular episode of history, the details of
which are not particularly well-known in much of Europe, more widely
taught in French schools? This would surely lead to a reduction in
the apparently serious problem of Armenian genocide denial.

That would certainly be better than passing laws against denying
historical atrocities, which could be a time consuming process. After
all why don’t they go the full hog and ban denial of the Mai
Lai massacre, Stalin’s Purges, the French Revolutionary Terror,
transatlantic slavery, the Roman occupation of Gaul and the slaughter
of the Amalekites? Come to think of it why not outlaw claims that
Alexander Graham Bell did not invent the first telephone?

Surely French politicians have something better to do? Perhaps one
thing they could do is work on re-building the Franco-Turkish alliance
which so scandalised Christian Europe in the 16th century. But then
their recent behaviour would suggest they would rather forget about
that connection even if they would not dream of denying it.

FRENCH SENATE OUTLAWS DENIAL OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Agence France Presse
Jan 23 2012

PARIS – French senators on Monday approved a bill that outlaws denial
of the Armenian genocide, despite vows from a furious Turkey that it
would punish Paris with “permanent” sanctions.

The Senate passed by a vote of 127 to 86 the bill which threatens with
jail anyone in France who denies that the 1915 massacre of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide.

The measure must now be signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to
become law.

FRANCE VOTES ON GENOCIDE LAW, FACES TURKISH REPRISALS

Chicago Tribune
,0,2084564.story
Jan 23 2012
IL

John Irish and Emile Picy, Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – French senators vote later Monday on a bill to make
it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks nearly a century ago was genocide, raising the prospect of a
major diplomatic rift between two NATO allies.

Lawmakers in the lower-house National Assembly voted overwhelmingly
in December for the draft law outlawing genocide denial, prompting
Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings with
Paris and recall its ambassador for consultations.

The bill, which has been made more general so that it outlaws the
denial of any genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing the Turks,
will be voted on around 7 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 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 government.

The Ottoman empire was dissolved soon after the end of World War One,
but successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks
feel the charge of genocide is a direct insult to their nation. Ankara
argues there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in
the area.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters at the
Council of Europe in Strasbourg that Ankara would take new and
permanent measures unless the bill was rejected and compared it to
the Inquisition in the Middle Ages which was created by the Catholic
Church to stamp out heresy.

“If the law is voted (through), it will hurt French and Turkish
relations.” Arinc said Turkey could take the matter to the European
Court of Human Rights.

Turkey says the bill is a bid by Sarkozy to win the votes of 500,000
ethnic Armenians in France in the two-round presidential vote on
April 22 and May 6.

The bill mandates a maximum 45,000-euro ($58,000) fine and a year in
jail for offenders. France passed a law recognizing the killing of
Armenians as genocide in 2001.

WAVING VOTING CARDS

Thousands of Turks from across Europe demonstrated in central Paris
at the weekend and about 200 Franco-Turks protested Monday in front
of the Senate. They waved their French voting cards and banners with
slogans including: “It’s not up to politicians to invent history.”

The Socialist Party, which has had a majority in the Senate since
elections in the upper house late last year, and the Senate leader
of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, which put forward the bill,
have said they will back the legislation.

But a non-binding Senate recommendation last week said the law would
be unconstitutional and, after weeks of aggressive Turkish lobbying,
there are suggestions the outcome will be closer than anticipated.

If adopted, Sarkozy should then ratify the bill with the process to
be completed before parliament is suspended in February ahead of the
presidential election.

It could still be rejected if some 60 lawmakers agree to appeal the
decision at the country’s highest court and that body considers the
text unconstitutional. The Constitutional Council would have one
month to make its decision.

Sarkozy wrote to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last week
saying the bill did not single out any country and that Paris was
aware of the “suffering endured by the Turkish people” during the
final years of the Ottoman empire.

French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called on Turkey not
to overreact and said Paris considered Ankara a “very important ally.”

Engin Solakoglu, first secretary at the Turkish embassy in Paris, said:
“France can’t continue to say that Turkey is an important ally when
it votes laws against it.”

European Union candidate Turkey could not impose economic sanctions
on France, given its World Trade Organization membership and customs
union accord with Europe.

But the row could cost France state-to-state contracts and would create
diplomatic tension as Turkey takes an increasingly influential role
in the Middle East.

(Additional reporting by Lucien Libert in Paris, Gilbert Reilhac in
Strasbourg and Daren Butler in Istanbul)

FRENCH SENATE DEBATES GENOCIDE BILL AMID TURKEY TENSIONS

Monsters and Critics.com
Jan 23 2012

Paris – France and Turkey were again headed for a diplomatic showdown
Monday as the French Senate began debating a bill making it a crime
to deny that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.

Turkey has threatened diplomatic and economic sanctions against France
if the bill, which passed the lower house of parliament in December,
is adopted by the upper house, as is expected.

The bill proposes to punish people who deny or ‘outrageously minimize’
genocides recognized by France with a year’s imprisonment and 45,000
euros (57,000 dollars) in fines.

France officially recognizes two genocides: the Nazi Holocaust of
Jews during World War II and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians in eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1917.

The country already has a law punishing Holocaust denial. This bill
aims to extend the sanctions contained in that law to the Armenian
case.

Several hundred people demonstrated outside the Senate – some for
the bill, others against it – as the debate got underway.

Many senators were absent, anxious to avoid voting on a bill that
has damaged relations with a key NATO ally.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday warned France not
to underestimate Turkey, saying Ankara wouldn’t take what it sees as
anti-Turkish legislation lying down.

Many Turks already feel betrayed by France because of President
Nicolas Sarkozy’s firm opposition to Turkey joining the European Union.

After December’s Assembly vote, Ankara suspended all bilateral
cooperation and temporarily recalled the Turkish ambassador.

The Turkish embassy in Paris says this time diplomatic ties could be
downgraded and that French firms could find themselves frozen out of
Turkish government contracts.

The French foreign ministry on Monday called for restraint and
emphasized the importance of Turkey ‘as a partner and ally.’

Opening the debate in the Senate, Patrick Ollier, the minister in
charge of relations with parliament, said the bill was ‘not about
stating history but about treating genocides recognized by France
equally.’

‘You can’t punish denial of one and not the other,’ he said.

Armenians say around 1.5 million people were killed or died during
forced marches to the Syrian desert between 1915 and 1917.

Turkey estimates between 300,000 and 500,000 people died but rejects
the genocide label, saying that there was no systematic policy to
destroy the Christian Armenian community and that many Muslim Turks
also died in the violence, which took place during World War I.

Erdogan has accused Sarkozy of using the bill to win the support
of France’s small but influential Armenian community ahead of this
year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

Before becoming president in 2007, Sarkozy – who is expected to seek
reelection in April – promised the Armenian community to push through
legislation banning genocide denial.

HOW WILL ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL AFFECT FRANCE-TURKEY RELATIONS?

CNN

Jan 23 2012

(CNN) — Turkey’s fraught relationship with France is set to erode
further as the French Senate prepares to vote on controversial
legislation that would criminalize any public denial of what the bill
calls the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 — a description
Turkey has rejected.

Under the legislation, anyone denying the deaths were genocide would
face a jail term and a fine of ~@45,000 ($58,000).

The lower house of French parliament passed the so-called Armenian
genocide bill last December, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador
from Paris and to cancel certain bilateral visits between the
countries.

What do Armenians say allegedly happened in 1915?

Armenian groups and many scholars argue that starting in 1915, Turks
committed genocide, when more than a million ethnic Armenians were
massacred in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.

The Turkish-Armenian controversy over the killings that took place last
century has reverberated wherever diaspora communities representing
both groups exist.

What does Turkey say happened in 1915?

Modern-day Turkey, which emerged after the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire, has always denied a genocide took place in 1915. It argues
instead that hundreds of thousands of Armenian Christians and Muslim
Turks died from intercommunal violence, disease and general chaos —
not from a specific plan to eliminate Armenians — around the bloody
battlefields of World War I.

“It has always been a sensitive issue,” said Dr. Katerina Dalacoura, a
lecturer in International Relations at the London School of Economics.

“Turkey has always refused to accept that it was a planned event. They
argue that genocide only applies if it was a plan to exterminate
people.”

Why is France doing this now?

France formally recognized the killings as genocide in 2001.

As there is no new information or new recognition about what the
facts are about events of 1915, some experts believe French President
Nicolas Sarkozy may be using the genocide bill for political gain
ahead of the country’s presidential election in April.

“It’s clear that President Sarkozy has put this on the table for
electoral reasons – there is an Armenian community in France which
will of course be voting,” Christian Malard, Senior Foreign Analyst
at France 3 TV, told CNN on Monday.

The bill has been applauded by Armenians, roughly 500,000 of whom
live in France.

The bill’s author, Valeri Bouyer from Sarkozy’s ruling party, has
denied any political motivation.

As for Sarkozy, he has said his country doesn’t need an OK from another
nation to develop its policies. In a letter to the Turkish government,
he said the law is not aimed at any country, but only at addressing
past suffering.

What is the public opinion in Turkey regarding the Armenian massacre?

Using the word genocide when talking about Armenia may not be as taboo
as it once was, but Turks still chafe at the idea of other countries
writing their history, says Fadi Hakura, Turkey Analyst at Chatham
House, a London-based think tank.

“Things have been progressing, but the population does not like
foreign powers defining their history,” he said. “It generates a lot
of misgivings.”

How would passage of the genocide bill affect Turkey-France relations?

If the French Senate ratifies the bill, ties between the two countries
could unravel further.

Turkey already recalled its ambassador from Paris and cancelled some
bilateral visits between the two countries after the French lower
house passed the bill in December, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan warned “this is only the first phase.”

Erdogan has also accused France of committing its own genocide during
the war in Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s.

“In Algeria, an estimated 15 percent of the population had been
subjected to the massacre of French from 1945 on. This is genocide,”
Erdogan said at a conference in Istanbul last year.

“Algerians were burnt en masse in ovens. They were martyred
mercilessly. If French President Mr. (Nicolas) Sarkozy does not know
about this genocide, he should ask his father Paul Sarkozy. His
father Paul Sarkozy served as a soldier in the French legion in
Algeria in 1940s.”

Once under French colonial rule, guerrillas in the North African
nation fought a bloody war against the French presence there from
1954 to 1962.

The French Foreign Ministry shot back at Erdogan’s comments, saying
“we deplore excessive use of formulas and personal attacks that do not
meet up to the standards of our mutual interest and of our relations.

France recalls that it assumes with clarity and transparency its duty
to remember the tragedies that have marked its history.”

Erdogan said he hoped the Senate would fail to pass the so-called
Armenian genocide bill. But he warned that if it did, Turkey would
initiate more measures toward France.

“This will create a lot of noise and difficulty in Turkey’s overall
relationships with France and other EU states that will complicate”
Turkey’s efforts to gain accession to the European Union, said Ross
Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

Turkey and France are NATO allies, and, according to official Turkish
statistics, the volume of trade between Turkey and France from January
to the end of October this year was more than $13.5 billion.

Do any countries recognize the killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey
in 1915 as genocide?

Twenty countries do, including Germany, Sweden and Canada, according
to Hakura.

The genocide debate is an annual source of tension between Turkey and
the United States, also two NATO allies. The White House, for example,
annually beats back efforts in Congress to pass a resolution which
would formally recognize the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.