Epress.am News from Armenia
Ankara has warned France of the “irreparable damage” that could ensue should France’s latest move to criminalize denying the Armenian Genocide took place in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 be passed next week in the French parliament.
“Turkish efforts and contact [with French officials] are ongoing at the moment,” Turkish officials told Today’s Zaman on Monday, as they recalled statements from Ankara that urge France not to politicize a historical matter that is very sensitive for both Turks and Armenians.
“The French administration is well aware of the sensitivity of this issue [the Armenian genocide] for our country. We hope that no steps that could cause irreparable damage will be taken at a time when Turkey and France have entered a stable phase that could increase opportunities of cooperation at bilateral and international levels,” a statement released by Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday, as Ankara repeated once more that it regarded such attempts as “reoccurring events” ahead of elections in France.
Turkey’s reaction to the move has been revived as the French parliament readies to vote a legislation that could make denying the 1915 events that took place in Turkey as genocide punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros, the Anatolia news agency reported on Monday. The voting, however, is not the first time France has mulled over criminalizing the denial of the events as genocide, as the French National Assembly adopted a bill in 2006, proposing that anyone who denied the Armenian Genocide, would be punished, but the bill was dropped the same year before coming to the senate.
Since France officially recognized the genocide in 2001, stirring up heated but short-lived tension between France and Turkey, French governments have attempted to introduce penalties for denying the alleged Armenian genocide several times, all of which were turned down before gaining full force.
The debate was most recently revived in October, when French President Nicholas Sarkozy urged Turkey during a visit to Armenia to recognize the killing of Armenians at the onset of World War I as genocide and threatened to pass a legislation that would criminalize its denial if the country failed to do so. The president’s remarks, which drew instant and sharp criticism from top Turkish officials, were claimed to have been “misunderstood,” as his aide, Jean David Levitte, told the Turkish Embassy in Paris a few days after the incident. Citing diplomatic sources, Anatolia reported mid-October that Levitte stressed French appraisal of Turkey as a great country and that France did not want a face off with Turkey over the Armenian issue.
At the time, Sarkozy’s words drew a stormy reaction from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who regarded his approach as “usual election-time fodder” aimed at pleasing the Armenian diaspora. Erdoğan also commented that he found Sarkozy’s remarks ironic, coming from a leader of a former colonizing country, while other Turkish officials have expressed views that Sarkozy is trying to increase French influence in Armenia and have a stronger say in the Caucuses by abusing the sensitive issue between Turkey and Armenia.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Turkish EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bağış retaliated against Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s remarks that Turkey would be governed by a true European government that would bow in respect before the genocide monument in Yerevan, saying that Sargsyan was “overstepping his boundaries” with such remarks. “Nobody has the power to make Turkey bow down,” Bağış told reporters, as he accused the Armenian government of weakening the people of Armenia with hunger and poverty and forcing half of the country’s population to flee to other countries, including Turkey.