Turkey tells France to face 'your own bloody history'

Today's Zaman

ISTANBUL, Dec 19: Turkey has slammed France for what it calls attempts to judge Turkish history before coming to terms with its own “dirty, bloody past” and repeated warnings of consequences in response to a bill the French legislature is readying to vote on that would criminalize denial that the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians in 1915 was genocide. “Today, nobody talks about the 45,000 Algerian deaths in 1945, or the role of France in the massacre of 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (pic) said of France on Saturday with a bitter criticism as he urged the country to face its own history before judging the history of others with strictly political motives. Erdoğan's strong reaction came in response to a vote by the French Senate to criminalize denial in France of the so-called Armenian genocide of 1915 and make it punishable by a maximum one-year prison sentence and a 45,000 euro fine -- a punishment that would bring denial of the alleged genocide up to par with denial of the Holocaust, the Associated Press news agency reported on Sunday. “Those who do not wish to see genocide should take another peek at their own dirty and bloody histories,” Erdoğan said during a joint press conference with Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC). This was a clear message to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who within the months leading up to the French presidential elections, has ratcheted up his call on Turkey to recognize these killings as genocide and face its history. Sarkozy, previously an opponent of the denial vote, changed his stance in October, when he announced he would support the denial bill unless Turkey took immediate steps to recognize the deaths as genocide. Accusing France of insincerity due to its “attack against Turkish history based on unfounded allegations,” the Turkish prime minister repeated Turkey's official stance regarding the Armenian deaths of 1915 as an historical matter that calls for the judgment of historians and academics rather than as a matter of politics to be voted on in parliaments. Ankara has also raised doubts regarding Sarkozy's motives in changing his stance regarding the Turkish-Armenian conflict, speculating that the French president might be seeking votes from the strong Armenian community in France to gain an advantage over his Socialist Party rival, François Hollande. Hollande is also a known defender of “Armenian genocide” and voiced throughout his election campaign that he would support a law to make genocide denial punishable in French courts. “The bill is completely against common sense. The toll [in the case the bill passes into law] will be on French firms conducting business in Turkey,” Turkey's EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış said on Saturday, two days after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu invited executives from French firms in Turkey to his ministry to discuss the possible results of such a law for French investment in the country. “The bill is mainly the problem of French businesses that are trying to work in this region through bases in Turkey,” Bağış said, warning that the bill is sure to have financial effects that might reach beyond Turkey. “It is one of the nonsensical moves Sarkozy has initiated to win back the support he has lost in France,” the first Turkish president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, stated as he joined Erdoğan in his warning that consequences will not be pleasant for France if it passes the denial law, Anatolia reported on Sunday. Çavuşoğlu also stressed that he interprets the French move as part of an election campaign, calling out Sarkozy for “using Turkey as a tool” towards own his political motives. “It [the law that criminalizes denial of Armenian genocide] is first and foremost against the principles of the council [PACE], against the principle of freedom of thought,” Çavuşoğlu said to highlight the discrepancy between the French bill and European standards. He added, “You have the right to recognize the alleged genocide, but I have the right to say it was not genocide.” In order to block the passage of the law through the French Senate, which is now set to vote on it Thursday, Ankara has mobilized various diplomatic efforts to convince the Senate to reconsider, warning of dire political and economic consequences should the bill be passed. Erdoğan personally warned Sarkozy of “irreparable damage” in a letter he sent to the French president last week, Anatolia reported. A Turkish diplomat further alerted Paris that the Turkish ambassador would be withdrawn for an indefinite period for consultations with Ankara, but no response has been offered by Paris so far regarding the ambassador. Unmoved by Ankara's warnings, Sarkozy's ruling party reaffirmed its faith in the bill, expressing support for its passage. Lawmakers interviewed by Agence France-presse (AFP) said that they were “determined at this time” that the bill not return from the Senate, as it did back in 2006. France had previously brought the same bill to the agenda five years ago, but the French Senate refused to discuss it even though France recognized the Armenian deaths of 1915 as genocide in 2001. According to a Cihan news agency report on Sunday, regarding the Turkish warnings as “blackmail,” French Senator Philippe Kaltenbach said, “France should not give up on its values in the face of this [Turkey's] attitude.” Kaltenbach also suggested Turkey is not sincere in its warnings, since the country issued similar statements back in 2001 when France recognized the alleged Armenian genocide, but none of its warnings were realized. “Turkey is after the same strategy [of issuing threats],” Kaltenbach said. Although modern Turkey recognizes there were a large number of casualties during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the onset of World War I, the country vehemently rejects allegations that there was a systematic cleansing targeting the Armenian community in the country, ruling the deaths casualties of civil unrest. Turkey also claims that the casualties were from both sides, and the death toll - estimated at more than a million by Armenia - is inflated. Several other countries recognize the killings as genocide, including Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Russia, Canada, Lebanon, Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Vatican, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus, according to AP reports.