Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey scraps spy satellite agreement with French firm
by The Associated Press, January 23, 2001
Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 07:37 am CST

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey scrapped a $149 million deal with a French firm to launch a spy satellite, retaliation for French lawmakers' recognition of the Ottoman Empire's killing of Armenians as genocide, the defense minister announced Tuesday.

The cancellation of the project was the first major step taken in reaction to last week's declaration by the lower house of France's National Assembly to recognize the killings as genocide.

Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said the deal with France's Alcatel was scrapped in response to "undeserved allegations against Turkey." Alcatel had signed an agreement in principle to build and launch Turkey's first remote sensing satellite by 2003, but had yet to sign a final deal.

"We have canceled the tender concerning the spy satellite project," Cakmakoglu said.

The French declaration outraged Turkey, which immediately recalled its ambassador to France. Turks protested outside French diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul, while several trade groups called for a boycott of French goods.

Cakmakoglu said France's Giat Industries, which builds the Leclerc tank, would be excluded from a $7 billion tank tender.

Armenians say 1.5 million of their people died in an Ottoman Empire campaign to force them from 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 founded in 1923.

The U.S. House of Representatives held off a similar resolution last year after then-President Clinton warned it could seriously damage relations with Turkey.

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