Open Democracy, UK
Oct 13 2006
Orhan Pamuk’s prize: for Turkey not against it
Anthony Barnett
13 – 10 – 2006
Orhan Pamuk forges a literature for the world from the intimacies of
his Istanbul, and in so doing gives Turkey’s experience universal
stature, says Anthony Barnett.

Orhan Pamuk gets the Nobel prize for literature. Most commentators
will take their cue from the politics of the award, Pamuk being among
the first writers to be put on trial for mentioning the Armenian
massacres of 1915. Others will discuss his novels. I’d like to
reflect on his compelling memoir Istanbul and how it illuminates his
distinction.
It presents itself as an early biographical reflection. It opens with
his strange sense of himself created by deeply feuding parents and
takes the reader through to the loss of his first love and his turn
from painting to writing – all woven through a careful mapping of his
fascination with his native city.
But Istanbul is also a justification for Pamuk’s profound decision to
become a writer who writes in the same family building in which he
grew up.
Ours is the age of migration. To stay or to leave is the question
that dominates adolescence. Often it expands to a choice of country –
or more often the dream of that choice. The pain, necessities and
consequences of migration have become one of the great themes of the
literature of our time. Never more explicitly than in The Satanic
Verses.
Alas, that novel is not famous for its commanding theme and Salman
Rushdie’s insistence on its long history. Should we back Lucretius or
Ovid, he has his characters ask. Do you break from yourself by
leaving the boundaries of your birth, or is moving a vital act of
freedom that leads to the discovery of who you are? To stay, or to
go, and what then happens?

Salman celebrates movement. Without the death of the old how can the
new be born, is his theme. His laureate doubtless awaits the time
when the old ceases to take mass offence at such apostasy.
Orhan Pamuk stayed. But what a way to remain! He reclaims one of the
world’s great cities for itself. His memoir is not an indulgence. It
records the loss of “old Istanbul” with just the right amount of
sentiment. At the same time it replaces its definition, taking it
from the hands of 19th-century literary travellers.
In a neat passage laced with subdued patriotism for Turkish women,
Pamuk gently turns the tables on Edward Said. In his pathbreaking
study Orientalism, Said makes much of Gustave Flaubert and notes
Flaubert’s description of an Egyptian doctor in Cairo ordering his
patients to show off their cases of syphilis to the visiting French
writer. It is presented as a vivid literary moment in the
19th-century projection of the orient as a combination of beastly
revulsion and sexual allure waiting to be “known” by the western
mind.
What a pity, Pamuk writes, that Said did not continue the story to
Istanbul where Flaubert, himself now suffering the genital
disfigurement of syphilis, manages to get into bed with the reluctant
young daughter of a brothel-owner who then, in Italian, demands that
he uncovers himself first so she can make sure he is not contagious.
Faced with humiliation, Flaubert wrote: “I acted the Monsieur and
jumped down from the bed, saying loudly that she was insulting me”.
She demanded to see him. She did not have the intellectual authority,
the network of interests or the external power to “define” Flaubert,
who ran away rather than expose himself before Turkish eyes. But the
story tells a lot about what Pamuk is doing with his own learning and
fluency. He reassesses the western painters and writers who “told the
world” about Ottoman Istanbul. He surpasses the Turkish westernisers
who were in thrall to them. Pamuk speaks with a world voice, not a
local or Istanbul one. Neither unduly modest nor overly boastful, he
says “we live here”.
To do this he makes much of hüzün, a word broadly translated as
melancholia. For Pamuk this state of feeling, between anguish and
resignation, inhabits the city and its inhabitants, including
himself. He suggests that its origins go back to the decline of the
Ottoman empire followed by its brutal replacement by a Turkey which
in the name of nation-building moved the capital to Ankara, depriving
the ancient heart of empire of its ruling functions.
The Turks I know do indeed share an exceptional, I can only say
civilised, sense of hüzün. Yet I have always found it strange,
because Istanbul fills me with energy and as I got to know it, a
feeling that Europe has a New York, a city of hope.
Orhan Pamuk’s achievement is considerably more than writing some
bestsellers followed by an interview about the massacres of the
Armenians. His Nobel prize is bound to be patronised as further
evidence of the need for solidarity with Turkey’s human-rights
movement, and thus as a sign of Turkish backwardness and its
problems, as if he were a Shirin Ebadi in Iran up against an
overwhelmingly fundamentalist regime.
In fact, he deserves to take the same pedestal as Toni Morrison. Her
government in Washington is undoubtedly parochial and in the hands of
nationalist zealots if not fundamentalists. But her achievement is
not defined by the obvious quality of her opposition to them. She
brought the black experience in America to universal stature. Pamuk
has helped make Turkey a world country, despite the hüzün-inducing
fleabites of rightwing jurists and nationalists. Oh yes, and Europe
should be proud.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Times, UK
Oct 13 2006
Turk who defied official history wins Nobel Prize
From Suna Erdem in Istanbul

ORHAN PAMUK, Turkey’s foremost novelist, who faced trial earlier this
year for comments about the massacres of Armenians in the First World
War, won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday.
Charges of `insulting Turkishness’ brought against Pamuk, 54, were
dropped on a technicality after attracting worldwide attention and
stirring protests that Turkish laws restricted freedom of expression.
The case damaged his country’s aspiration to join the European Union.

He had been favourite to win the prize for a rich body of work that
explores the complexities of identity and clashing cultures in
Turkey, a secular, overwhelmingly Muslim state, that bridges Europe
and Asia.
Intense applause greeted his name when it was announced by Horace
Engdahl, the head of the Swedish Academy.
In a twist that considerably dampened celebrations in Turkey, the
prize was announced on the day that the French Parliament approved a
Bill to make it illegal to deny that the Armenian killings amounted
to genocide. Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, said that his
country would consider retaliatory measures against France. In
Ankara, protesters pelted the French Embassy with eggs.
Mr Engdahl dismissed criticism that politics might have been a factor
in the selection. `I believe that this will be met with delight by
all readers,’ he said. `But it can naturally give rise to a certain
amount of political turbulence. That is not what we are interested
in.’
The Academy said that Pamuk – whose works include My Name is Red, an
historical whodunnit starring Ottoman miniaturists, Black Book,
chronicling a man’s search for his wife through Istanbul, and
Istanbul, an autobiographical portrait of the city – has `discovered
new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures’. It added:
`Pamuk has said that growing up, he experienced a shift from a
traditional Ottoman family environment to a more Western-oriented
lifestyle.’
On winning the Kr10 million (£728,000) prize, Pamuk declined to
answer political questions, but predicted that it would raise the
international profile of Turkish literature. `This will lead the
world to review Turkish culture as a culture of peace,’ he said in
New York.
Pamuk’s win was welcomed in Turkey, with Foreign Ministry officials
and the eminent writer Yasar Kemal offering their congratulations.
But his critics, who concede that Pamuk’s multiple international
awards more than prove the quality of his writing, have said that his
forays outside literature would not have gone unnoticed. `I think you
can say there is more than literature at stake here. Perhaps it’s
always been a mixture between what’s on the printed page and what the
writer stands for politically,’ Ian Jack, the editor of Granta, said.
Ozdemir Ince, the prominent Turkish poet, also said that he believed
Pamuk was honoured because of his politics. `If you ask serious
literature people, they would place Pamuk at the end of the list,’ Mr
Ince said. `Turkish literature did not win the Nobel Prize, Pamuk
did.’
Until last year Pamuk, the Istanbul-born son of a bourgeois family,
had been considered a rather aloof, literary figure. His fanciful,
stylish prose won him acclaim but his acute observations about his
fellow Turks also made enemies.
His trial, for `insulting Turkishness’ followed his assertion that
one million Armenians had been killed in Turkey in 1915, and 30,000
Kurds during an insurgency decades later. Although the case was
dismissed, it caused great embarrassment to Ankara as it tried to
demonstrate to the EU that Turkey is reforming its restrictive laws.

Newsroom Finland, Finland
Oct 13 2006
Rehn criticises France’s Armenian genocide bill
13.10.2006 at 15:00
Olli Rehn, the European Union’s enlargement commissioner, said in a
news conference Friday that the French parliament’s adoption on
Thursday of a bill making it a crime to deny that the killing of
Armenians in 1915-17 by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide was
harmful as it made a historical debate in Turkey more difficult.
Mr Rehn, the Finnish member of the commission, added that the bill,
if approved by the French senate, would probably halt the nascent
debate in Turkey.
Turkey says the killing of 1.5 Armenians was not a genocide.

Hurriyet, Turkey
Oct 13 2006
French Parliament’s vote creates shock waves
Friday , 13 October 2006
In France, a cradle of democracy which helped make freedom a
universal value, the French National Parliament yesterday voted to
approve a bill mandating jail time and monetary fines for people
publicly denying the so-called Armenian genocide.
Despite yesterday’s overwhelming vote of approval however, the bill
must pass through the French Senate and then be signed by the French
president before being put into implementation. Also casting an
ambigious shadow overt the parliament’s vote yesterday was the fact
that the French government repeated both before and after the vote
that it did not support the bill in question.
Paris administration underscores its opposition to the bill
The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement following the vote
saying that it “wanted very much” to continue dialogue between Paris
and Ankara. Foreign Ministry spokeperson Jean Baptiste Mattei said
“Just as we wish to carry on our strong friendship and our
cooperative ties, we want to continue our dialogue with Turkey.”
Spokesperson Mattei also referred to the “genocide denial” bill
approved yesterday as both “unnecessary” and “untimely” in his
statements.
Another voice of opposition against the “genocide denial” bill came
yesterday from European Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna, who stood
to address the national assembly prior to its morning vote on the
bill. Said Colonna, “We as the government are opposed to this bill.
As it is, the parliament already voted to officially recognize the
Armenian genocide in 2001. President Jacques Chirac mentioned the
genocide clearly on his visit to the Armenian capital Yerevan. And
looking at things politically, Turkey has already begun work on this
subject, looking back at history, as have other countries. We must
encourage this work. This is why we, as the government, oppose this
bill.”
Out of the entire French Parliament, which has 571 seats, a total of
125 MPs participated in yesterday’s vote. Out of these 125 votes, 106
were in support of the bill, with 19 opposing.
Mesrob II: This will only butter the bread of radicals everywhere
Speaking in reaction to news that the French Parliament had passed
the “genocide denial” bill, Patriarch Mesrob II, the leader of the
Armenian Orthodox community in Turkey, issued this warning:
“The French, who have in the past put up serious blockades in front
of Turkey during its quest for EU membership, have now dealt a
serious blow to the already constrained dialogue between Turkey and
Armenia. The law will only butter the bread of both radical Turks and
radical Armenians.”

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 13 2006
`France has Ruined Historical Prestige for Sake of Votes’
By Cihan News Agency
Friday, October 13, 2006
zaman.com
The French Parliament has shown that it is in pursuit of simple
policies and France has ruined all its historical prestige for the
sake of votes, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters
on Thursday afternoon.
Turkish government and NGOs have continued to protest the highly
controversial French bill on the so-called Armenian genocide, which
was passed in the French Parliament on Thursday.
FM Abdullah Gul criticized the adoption of the bill penalizing the
denial of the so-called Armenian genocide. “This will be an
unforgettable shame on France. From now on, France will never be able
to describe itself as a country of freedoms”, FM Gul remarked during
a press briefing held following his meeting with visiting Afghan
Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta.
Gul underlined that the bill struck a heavy blow on Turkish-French
relations and seriously damaged the credibility of France as a
European Union (EU) member which defends freedom of expression.
“The parliament will meet on Tuesday with a special agenda and no
doubt we have measures to take in every field”, Gul added, urging
that no one should harbor the conviction that Turkey will handle the
bill lightly.
Gul also assured that Turkey took this as a national issue.
“Certainly our reaction both at the official and public level will be
very big,” Gul said implying possible boycotts on French products.
Meanwhile, protesters in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, egged
the French Embassy, and in Istanbul demonstrators marched down
Istiklal Avenue in Beyoglu district, laying a black wreath at the
gates of the French Consulate.
Despite huge reactions and warnings from the Turkish government and
public, the French National Assembly, the lower house of the
Parliament, on Thursday adopted the much-debated bill, which
stipulates up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros for
anyone who denies the so-called Armenian genocide during World War I.

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 13 2006
`Government not to Back Boycott of French Goods’
By Cihan News Agency
Friday, October 13, 2006
zaman.com
Referring to the adoption of a bill penalizing the denial of the so
called Armenian genocide in France, Turkey’s Chief EU Negotiator Ali
Babacan said on Thursday that the government would not encourage a
boycott of French goods; adding that it was up to the Turkish public.
“As the government of Turkey, we are not encouraging something like
that. But the decision is up to the people”, he remarked in Brussels
where he has been as part of his Europe tour.
“It will definitely cause some backlash in the Turkish society”,
Babacan went on to say, adding that the controversial draft law was
not in line with the core values of the EU.

Today, Azerbaijan
Oct 13 2006
French Ambassador: “Senators are more far-sighted than MPs”

13 October 2006 [16:25] – Today.Az

“I regret that France Parliament adopted the law that would make it a
crime to deny false Armenian genocide by first reading,” Bernard
Amaudric du Chaffaut, French Ambassador to Azerbaijan told
journalists.

He said the decision triggered serious public reaction, APA reports.
“The decision needs to be approved at some stages. I hope the Senate
will not approve this decision. French senators are more far-sighted
than parliamentarians. Even if the Senate approves it, the
Constitutional Court will determine whether the decision contradicts
to the constitution or not, because there is an item on freedom of
thinking in France constitution. The president may be the last
obstacle in the adoption of the law. A president having no veto can
refuse to sign the law. I hope the adoption of the law will be
postponed till March 2007, the parliamentary elections in France,
because, Armenian electors have great influence on France Socialist
Party,” he said.
The Ambassador also said that he got acquainted with the Azerbaijan
Foreign Ministry’s position on the decision. He said this law will
damage France-Turkey and France-Azerbaijan relations.
“When France Parliament recognized false Armenian genocide the
relations between France and Turkey were not damaged. The other
positive point of it was that Turkish and Armenian historians agreed
to probe into historical events. Armenians organized strong Diaspora
in France and take an active part in political processes. I hope
Azerbaijan and Turkey will express their positions until the decision
is passed,” Mr.Chaffaut said.
Ambassador also touched upon France President’s visit to Azerbaijan
and said that Jacques Chirac is not expected to postpone his visit.

URL:

Regnum, Russia
Oct 13 2006
Expert: Ankara’s next step will be charging the US with the genocide
of Indians in North America
As you may know, after the visit of French President Jacques Chirac
to Armenia and his statement during a press-conference in Yerevan
that the French Parliament was drafting a bill on criminal
responsibility for denying the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, they
in Turkey and Azerbaijan have launched a large-scale anti-French
campaign. Expert of the Caucasus analytical center Sergey Shakaryants
comments on the matter.
He says that the situation when Turkish politicians are charging
France with `genocide in Algeria’ is more like the childish `You are
fool yourself!’ style than an attitude of conscious political or
public figures to a serious problem. `Instead of recognizing or
producing real facts and documents to disprove the Armenian Genocide
perpetrated in Western Armenia and other parts of the former Ottoman
Empire, the Turks are trying to charge with genocide the countries
who have taken steps to recognize and condemn the crime committed by
Turkish chauvinists. In such a case, the Turks will have no end of
work to do – for example, their next step may be charging with a
genocide of North American Indians almost all the US states whose
national assemblies have passed resolutions recognizing and
condemning the Armenian Genocide.’
`True, Turkey will hardly dare to be as blackmailing to even one US
state as it is now to France. Old Continent is a different story –
they are burdened with the necessity of negotiating EU membership
with Ankara and are absolutely at a loss what to do with the problem
of yearly swelling Muslim and Turkish gastarbeiter communities in
almost all European states,’ says Shakaryants.
He believes that Azerbaijan’s solidarity with Turkey in the matter
comes more from self-interest than barely from commitment to the
recent Azeri-Turkish agreements on mutual support in `fighting the
Armenian lobby’ worldwide. `This can be seen in the recent behavior
of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov, who have begun to actively argue for the deployment of
some `international peacekeepers’ in the Karabakh-Azerbaijani
conflict zone. Their point is that, since the OSCE MG states have,
allegedly, no right to provide their military contingents for such
`peacekeeping,’ they, in tandem with Ankara, will succeed in `pushing
through’ the scenario of Turkish peacekeeping presence, like was the
case in Lebanon,’ says Shakaryants.
`However, the attempts of Turkey and Azerbaijan to blackmail the
international community and Armenia with NKR are a priori doomed to
failure. It was not without purpose that Turkey was debarred from any
active part in the OSCE MG – Yerevan and Stepanakert are unanimous
that Turkey, who, de facto, took part in the war (to remind, any form
of blockade by any country, in fact, even by the UN, is considered to
be a form of waging or partaking a war) had and has absolutely no
right to take part in the affairs of the South Caucasus, not
mentioning the Karabakh peace process. The Armenian Genocide issue
will always be `a sword of Damocles’ for Ankara if it actually wants
to join United Europe – at least, because there are still many
descendants of Armenian Genocide victims living in many European
countries,’ says Shakaryants.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Spiegel Online, Germany
Oct 13 2006
French Law Outrages Turks
By Jürgen Gottschlich in Istanbul
French lawmakers have voted to make it a crime to deny that the mass
killings of Armenians that occurred in Turkey during World War I
amounted to genocide. The decision has caused outrage among both
politicians and critical intellectuals in Turkey. Now France faces
economic retaliation from Ankara.
“There is a century-long friendship between Turkey and France. Now,
with this decision, France is destroying the basis of that
friendship,” says Onur Oymen, a Turkish parliamentarian and member of
the opposition Social Democrats. Oymen, who was visibly shaken as he
spoke, is one of three Turkish members of parliament who travelled to
Paris in response to French lawmakers debating a bill on the mass
killings of Armenians that occurred in Turkey during World War I.
Turkey didn’t give up hope until the very last moment that lawmakers
in the lower house of the French parliament would vote against the
bill, which criminalizes statements denying that Turkish mass
killings of Armenians during World War I constitute genocide. The
bill passed by 106 votes to 19, despite the fact that the government
of French President Jacques Chirac opposed it. Many lawmakers simply
chose not to attend the session during which the vote took place.
Now, intense outrage is expected to erupt on Turkish streets.
Followers of the far-right National Movement Party (MHP) have already
staged demonstrations during the past days, and popular outrage at
France is expected to peak during the days to come. Most Turks view
the bill as just the latest humiliation from France — a symbolic
rejection of Turkey’s bid for membership in the European Union.
A broad majority of people in the West believe the mass killings of
Armenians that occurred in Turkey during the decline of the Ottoman
Empire fit the definition of genocide. But criminalizing the opposing
viewpoint is unlikely to change the minds of Turks who feel their
country is being unjustly accused.
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By Conrad J. Boogeyman Prior to the French vote, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “a lie is still a lie, even
if another parliament decides otherwise.” Of course, he made that
statement with support from a majority of the Turkish population. At
the same time, Erdogan also sought to assuage tensions between France
and Turkey, explicitly rejecting a proposal from his governing
faction to respond to Paris by declaring French war crimes in Algeria
to be a case of genocide. But Turkey has officially said it will
respond to the French law by means of economic retaliation.
The Turkish government has announced it will call off a
French-Turkish business deal involving military technology, in
addition to excluding French companies from the bidding process for
construction of a planned nuclear reactor in Turkey. Political
parties, patriotic groups and other associations will also demand a
boycott of French products — a move that will likely have even more
serious effects on French-Turkish economic relations. If the boycott
gains traction, French companies stand to lose a great deal. For
example, car-maker Renault has a major plant near Istanbul. Turkey is
also an important market for the French supermarket chain Carrefour.
In the run-up to the vote, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
alluded to France’s economic dependence on Turkey. “If this bill is
passed, Turkey will not lose anything,” he said, “but France will
lose Turkey.”
Turkish intellectuals reject French decision
But it’s the democratic forces that have been fighting to defend
freedom of expression in Turkey for years who have been most damaged
by the bill. These groups have long tried to raise public awareness
of the mass killings of Armenians, and the fact that freedom of
expression will now be curbed in France creates a paradoxical
situation for these groups. “How are we supposed to argue against
laws that prohibit us from talking about genocide, when France is now
doing exactly the same, just the other way round?” asks Hrant Dink,
one of Istanbul’s most prominent Armenian intellectuals. “It’s
completely irrational.”
Dink is editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, which
has tried in recent years to promote a public debate on Turkish
crimes against the Armenians. Along with other Turkish and
Turkish-Armenian intellectuals, Dink organized a conference on the
Armenian question in Istanbul last year. It was the first time that
the official version of Turkish history was publicly debated in
Turkey. “If this law goes into effect, I’ll be the first to travel to
Paris to violate it,” says Dink.
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He is unlikely to be the only one. Take former Maoist Dogu Perincek,
now the leader of a nationalist sect, who may prove unable to resist
the opportunity to stir up trouble in France. Last year in Berlin, he
organized a demonstration to mobilize Germans against the “genocide
lie.” He has also already been arrested in Switzerland, where a law
similar to that voted through in France has already been in effect
for some time. The arrest was a propaganda coup for Perincek, and
Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher confessed during a visit to
Turkey two weeks ago that the law has been a major headache for the
country.
Additionally, the Armenian minority population in Turkey is expecting
trouble. The Armenian patriarch in Istanbul, Mesrop Mutafyan, says
the French law will have a detrimental effect on attempts to
establish a dialogue and a sense of mutual understanding between
Armenians and Turks. In recent years, Armenians have been viewed more
positively than they used to be, and the same has been true for
Turkey’s other Christian minority, the Greeks — especially in
Istanbul. But the French vote could now prove to be a setback for
these minority groups.
Relations between Turkey and the neighboring state of Armenia may
also be negatively affected. The informal talks initiated between the
two countries last year will probably be discontinued. The talks
represent an attempt to explore the possibilities for normalizing
Turkish-Armenian relations, if only at a purely bureaucratic level.
Turkish nationalists are already demanding that the roughly 70,000
Armenians who work illegally in Turkey — and who have until now been
quietly tolerated by the government in Ankara — be expelled.
,1518,44242 2,00.html

Zaman Online, Turkey
Oct 13 2006
Turkish Businessmen Boycott French Companies
By Isa Sezen, Istanbul
Friday, October 13, 2006
zaman.com
The passing of the controversial Armenian genocide denial bill in the
French parliament has prompted strong reactions in Turkish business
circles.
Several businessmen announced they would suspend business
partnerships with French companies.
However, no reaction came from Turkey’s Army Pension Fund (OYAK),
which is a partner with French giants in the steel, automotive and
insurance industries.
Associations Also Call for Boycott
Omer Bolat, chairman of the Independent Industrialists and
Businessmen’s Association (MUSIAD), said the law penalizing the
denial of the alleged Armenian genocide passed by the French
parliament aimed at obstructing Turkey’s accession to the European
Union and called for the commercial boycott against France to be a
long-term and collective one.
MUSIAD called its members to stop commercial relationships with
French companies.
Erhan Ozmen, the chairman of Turkish Young Businessmen Confederation,
thinks the passing of the law will have permanent effects on the
relationship between the two countries.
However, Ozmen said boycotts and embargos would damage Turkey as much
as France, and added that the $5 million French capital in Turkey
should not be forgotten.
The Economic Development Foundation also thinks France will correct
its `mistake.’
Milsoft, a leading software company in Turkey’s defense industry,
decided not to join the Euronaval 2006, an international fair on
defense, to be held in Paris in the upcoming weeks.
Two Turkish companies applied for participation in Euronaval, one of
the world’s leading naval armament fairs.
However, Yonca-Onuk, a comopany well-known for its Kaan-class
fast-patrol boats, is joining the fair.
`We must show a joint reaction against this unlucky and biased
decision. Therefore, we decided not to join the fair,’ Milsoft
Marketing Director Cem Koc said.
Yonca-Onuk’s boss Ekber Onuk does not agree with Koc.
`We have been taking part in this fair for the last four or five
years. There will be a gap unless we join it this year. This gap in
the defense industry will negatively affect our company and our
country. We should be there for the Turkish defense industry,’ Onuk
said.
Currently in Brussels, Turkish State Minister Ali Babacan said, `As
Turkey supports freedom of thought and expression, France’s decision
to restrict the freedom of thought is contrary to the European
Union’s basic values.’
Babacan added that the decision made by the French parliament did not
represent the majority of France. `We will continue with the reform
process in the same way. We will take steps to set a good example for
our own people, for the rest of the EU member countries and for
neighboring states.’
As OYAK keeps silent on the law penalizing the denial of the alleged
Armenian genocide, several Turkish businessmen are withdrawing their
orders from France.
Agaoglu Insaat, a leading company in the construction industry,
cancelled its agreement with the French company Carrefour to open a
supermarket in its MyCountry project in Cekmekoy Istanbul.
Businessman Turgay Ciner, owner of Sabah Daily and channel ATV,
suspended the order of an airplane from France as a reaction against
the genocide bill.
Clup Irem Tour owner Saadettin Ulubay suspended a helicopter order
from a French company.
Ulubay said they had concerns about the cancellation of reservation
in tours to France during the Ramadan holiday.
Some French companies operating in Turkey include Total, Elf,
Carrefour, Danone, Tefal, Michelin, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen,
Lacoste, L’Oreal, Lancome, Christian Dior, Avon, Onduline, Lafarge,
Chryso, Air France, BIC, Cartier, Sheaffer, Le coq sportif, Alcatel,
AXA, Gunes Insurance, Basak Insurance, Basak Emeklilik Societe
General Bank, Turkish Economy Bank, Sanofi and Servier.
TUSIAD: Let us Reply with Reforms
TUSIAD called the French bill `a big mistake.’
`A proper reply to be given to France would be to accelerate
political reforms to include freedom of expression particularly and
proceed toward our goal of full [EU] membership as a country holding
memberships talks with the European Union,’ the association stated.
TOBB: They won’t be Invited for Bids
Rifat Hisarciklioglu, chairman for the Turkish Union of Chambers and
Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), said public administrations in Turkey
would not invite French companies to bids after the passing of the
bill.
`The French National Parliament made a mistake. Responsibility for
this process falls on it,’ Hisarciklioglu said. The TOBB chairman
thinks France failed in the test of law and conscience and described
the developments as a black page in its history.