Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

French Parliament recognizes Armenian genocide, infuriating Turkey
by Emmanuel Georges-Picot - Associated Press Newswires, 01/18/2001
Posted: Thursday, January 18, 2001 07:36 pm CST

PARIS (AP) - French lawmakers voted unanimously Thursday to recognize the 1915 killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador to France in an angry protest.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit warned that the vote would further damage relations with France.

"The French parliament has made an extremely unjust decision, accusing Turkey of an imaginary genocide," Ecevit said. "It is not possible to accept this unfair decision. The necessary reaction will be shown."

Despite French government opposition to the measure, the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, unanimously gave final approval to a text reading: "France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915."

The Senate had given its approval in November.

Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed as part of the Ottoman Empire's campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923. Turkey says the death count is inflated and that Armenians were killed or displaced as the Ottoman Empire tried to quell civil unrest. Modern-day Turkey was born in 1923.

The U.S. House of Representatives shelved a similar resolution last year after President Clinton warned that it could seriously damage ties with Turkey. Turkey put intense pressure on the United States, including threats not to renew the mandate for U.S. aircraft patrolling northern Iraq.

In a sign that Turkish reaction to the French vote could be economic as well as political, Sinan Aygun, the head of Ankara's trade chamber, called for a boycott of French goods, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem hinted to reporters in Istanbul that France could be excluded from state tenders and military transactions.

"It is a pity the French parliament has taken a decision which I believe did not stand with the values to which France is presumed to adhere," Cem said.

The French government had opposed the measure, expecting Ankara's anger.

"France is Armenia's friend," the government's minister for parliamentary relations, Jean-Jack Queyranne, said Thursday. "We are also a friend of modern Turkey, which cannot be held responsible for events which happened during the upheavals of the Ottoman Empire."

But Patrick Devedjian, spokesman for the conservative Rally for the Republic party - and himself of Armenian origin - said, "Those who want Turkey to enter the European Union should at least have the decency to ask it to be presentable."

Turkey has been accepted as a candidate for EU membership but has not yet opened negotiations.

The European Parliament, Italy, Belgium and Argentina have also recognized the Armenian killings as genocide.

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