Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey Punishes France
by BBC, Jan. 23, 2001
Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 07:39 am CST

Turkey has cancelled a spy satellite contract with France's Alcatel firm in protest at a French bill recognising as genocide the killings of Armenians in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire.

The government in Ankara is also considering excluding French companies from 10 other projects including Gait Industries from a tender for the joint production of 1,000 combat tanks, estimated to be worth $7bn.

Turkey has already withdrawn its ambassador to France - one of its main trading partners.

The cancellation of the satellite project was the first major step in reaction to last week's declaration on the deaths of Armenians by the lower house of France's National Assembly.

Last autumn Alcatel won the contract, worth $259m according to Turkey's Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, after fierce competition with an Israeli company.

It had signed an agreement in principal to build and launch Turkey's first spy satellite by 2003, but had yet to sign a final deal.

Giat, the producer of Leclerc tanks, is one of five bidders for the tender to supply an initial 250 tanks to Turkey.

'Inflated' death count

The other contenders for the lucrative deal are Krauss-Maffei Wegmann of Germany, General Dynamics of United States and Ukrspetseksport of Ukraine.

Armenians say 1.5 million of their people died in an Ottoman Empire campaign to force them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923.

But Turkey says the death count is inflated and that Armenians were killed or displaced as the Ottoman Empire tried to quell civil unrest.

Dozens of Turkish trade and industry bodies, unions, and professional associations have called for a boycott of French goods.

The US House of Representatives held off a similar resolution to France's last year after then President Bill Clinton warned it could seriously damage relations.

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