Relations between Turkey and France could be headed for a new crisis after French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested his government could pass a bill criminalizing any denial of Armenian genocide claims, drawing a swift reaction from Ankara.
Turkish Ambassador to Paris Tahsin Burcuoğlu will visit the French Foreign Ministry on Oct. 8 to lodge Ankara’s protest regarding Sarkozy’s comments, the Hürriyet Daily News has learned.
The development came on the same day the interior ministers of Turkey and France signed an important agreement on the fight against terror and organized crime, but the deal has been overshadowed by the eruption of the diplomatic crisis.
Sarkozy, who is currently on a Caucasus tour, visited Armenia on Oct. 6 and urged Turkey to “revisit its history” over the killings of hundreds of thousands Armenians during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
If Turkey does not recognize the genocide claims and step toward reconciliation, the French president said he would consider proposing the adoption of a law criminalizing the denial of the killings as genocide. An earlier attempt by the French government was rejected by the French Senate in 2009.
Sarkozy intimated that Turkey should make the recognition before the end of his mandate in May next year.
France should face on past, Ankara says
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu instructed Burcuoğlu to express Ankara’s feelings and opinions in a strongly worded message to his French counterpart.
Alongside the diplomatic protest, senior members of the Turkish government harshly criticized Sarkozy’s stance and urged France to confront its colonial past before giving lessons to others.
“Those who will not be able to face their own history for having carried out colonialism for centuries, for treating foreigners as second-class people, do not have the right to teach Turkey a history lesson or call for Turkey to face its history. It will be very beneficial if France confronts its own history, particularly with African nations,” Davutoğlu told reporters Oct. 7.
Turkey could face its own history, but it is also a history of Turks and Armenians living together, Davutoğlu said.
“I consider such remarks [by Sarkozy] as political opportunism, and unfortunately such political opportunism is seen in Europe whenever there is an upcoming election,” Davutoğlu said.
Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bağış also criticized Sarkozy, saying the president would do better to concern himself with extricating France from its economic crisis rather than play historian on the Armenian question. “Our mission, as politicians, is not to define the past or past events. It is to define the future,” he was quoted as saying by Anatolia news agency during a visit to Sarajevo.
‘Turkey does not belong in EU’
During his visit to Tbilisi on his tour, Sarkozy reiterated his opposition to Turkey’s accession to the European Union. “France does not see this country [Turkey] in the EU,” he said.
“Turkey has an important role in the world as it has been located in Asia Minor and is a bridge between West and East. But this role [of Turkey] does not cover the EU,” he said.
In the last leg of his Caucasus tour, Sarkozy visited Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey, from where he received a cold shoulder for his views on the genocide claims.
Ali Hasanov, a senior official at the Azerbaijani Presidency, said his country did not share Sarkozy’s views on the 1915 incidents, Anatolia reported.
Recalling that Turkey and Azerbaijan’s regional interests were similar, Hasanov said they hoped Sarkozy’s visit would help speed up efforts to solve the Nagorno-Karabkh dispute with Armenia.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
