Cyprus-Forum.com

[saravakos]

Turkey has condemned a French parliamentary vote which would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered "genocide" at the hands of the Turks.
Turkey called it a "serious blow" to relations and has threatened sanctions. The vote was also criticised by the EU.

The bill, tabled by the opposition but opposed by the French government, needs approval from the Senate and president.

Armenia says Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million people systematically in 1915 - a claim strongly denied by Turkey.

There are accusations in Turkey that the Armenian diaspora and opponents of Turkey's European Union membership bid are using the issue to stop it joining the 25-member bloc.

'Unfounded'

Turkey has been warning France for weeks not to pass the bill which was sponsored by the opposition Socialist party.

It provides for a year in jail and a 45,000-euro (£30,000) fine - the same punishment that is imposed for denying the Nazi Holocaust.

"Turkish-French relations, which have been meticulously developed over the centuries, took a severe blow today through the irresponsible initiatives of some short-sighted French politicians, based on unfounded allegations," the Turkish foreign ministry said.

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says many Turks are angry at what they see as double standards in the EU, where opinions are sharply divided about whether Turkey should be allowed to join.

The European Commission has said that if the bill becomes law it will "prohibit dialogue which is necessary for reconciliation" between Turkey and Armenia.

The official Turkish position states that many Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in fighting during World War I - but that there was no genocide.

But public debate on the issue has been stifled in Turkey.

The French vote came as controversial Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.

He has faced prosecution in Turkey for talking about the murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I and thousands of Kurds in subsequent years.

The charges have since been dropped.

Celebration and concern

The French governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) did not back the bill, but gave its deputies a free vote.

It passed by 106 votes to 19, after most deputies left the chamber in protest against what critics say is an attempt to attract votes of the some 500,000 people of Armenian descent in presidential elections next year.

Ethnic Armenians in Paris celebrated the result.

"The memory of the victims is finally totally respected," said Alexis Govciyan.

But French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin distanced himself from the bill.

It is "not a good thing to legislate on issues of history and of memory," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6045838.stm

excellent news

[Kikapu]

Will a similar bill pass through the ROC legislators over 1571.!!!!!!!!!!

What do you think Piratis.??

[Mickleham]

TURKEY v ARMENIANS,
TURKEY V CYPRIOTS
TURKEY V KURDISTAN
TURKEY V ASIAN MINOR
TURKEY V FRANCE

TURKEY V. (RECENT PAST) GREECE, BULGARIA , RUSSIA, SYRIA, IRAQ ETC


WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS TURKISH NATION?

[saravakos]

how can they deny it with 1.5m murdered!!

the best kept secret for nearly a century...disgraceful

[Ascot]

How about the KURDISH people?

They slaughter them like sheep everyday for the last 50 years at least!

Everything gets hide under the carpet!

Nobody talks right now.

[cypezokyli]

i dont have a problem with the french parliament accepting the term "armenian genocide".

i find though, the leglising the other opinion , as completely rediculous and undemocratic. (even in armenia as i was told today, there is no such law!! )

[dinos]

Turkey called it a "serious blow" to relations and has threatened sanctions.

OK, this might be a stupid question. But what meaningful sanctions could Turkey impose on Europe?

[zan]

Turkey called it a "serious blow" to relations and has threatened sanctions.

OK, this might be a stupid question. But what meaningful sanctions could Turkey impose on Europe?

Last year Turkey traded with France to the tune of 4 1/2 billion pounds.

[saravakos]

The 54-year-old Constantinople-born Pamuk had been taken to court for "insulting Turkishness," but subsequently the charges were dropped under pressure from Europeans who started questioning Turkey's commitment to free speech.

Pamuk was on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper in February 2005 that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I, which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide, and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

"Thirty-thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it," he said.

From a Greek perspective it is comforting to know that the treatment of the Anatolian and Pontian Greek-Orthodox population (to say nothing of the September 1955 riots) either is not as painful as the aforementioned subjects or it has been, already and adequately, dealt with.

[dinos]

Turkey called it a "serious blow" to relations and has threatened sanctions.

OK, this might be a stupid question. But what meaningful sanctions could Turkey impose on Europe?

Last year Turkey traded with France to the tune of 4 1/2 billion pounds.

If there was a 4.5 billion dollar variance in Turkey's favor, this would amount to about 0.51% of gross GDP. If their economy grew 0.52%, Turkey's sanctions would be negated. This is, of course, general and doesn't take into account industry-specific effects...

(Note: I found data on France's economy denominated in USD. Exact data on trade w/Turkey wasn't quickly found so I assumed that 4.5 B pounds = roughly 9 B dollars).