The Turkish Foreign Minister has said that a letter sent by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Turkish prime minister was ineffective in its attempt to ease the country's reaction to a genocide denial bill in the French Senate, set to be debated on Monday.
“No opinion, no letter will change our perspective regarding the matter,” Davutoğlu told reporters on Friday, in reference to a letter Sarkozy recently sent to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to urge Turkey not to take personally a bill that seeks to penalize denial of the “Armenian genocide.” Davutoğlu further criticized the upcoming French Senate debate that will determine the fate of the denial bill as a move that “transcends beyond a third country's interference in the relations of two other nations,” and beyond a Turkish-Armenian debate, as it seems to suggest that Turkey and France must now settle the issue.
Sarkozy's message to Erdoğan stressed that France cares about its ties to its ally Turkey, in an attempt to ease the tension between the leaders that erupted when the French government took a bill to the Senate to criminalize genocide denials.
“The law that will first and foremost apply to France and French citizens is to protect the memories of members of our society who have been carrying along with them for a very long time feelings of denial toward the realities of their ancestors' experiences, and to heal the wounds that were inflicted one hundred years ago,” wrote Sarkozy in the letter released by the French Embassy.
Sarkozy's letter comes in response to a previous letter Erdoğan sent the French leader to urge him to reconsider the controversial bill. “The initiative is in the context of a general legal move to criminalize racist and xenophobic remarks; no nation or state was specifically targeted in the wording of the text,” the letter read. His words signaled that the denial bill should not be regarded as a personal assault on Turkey, but rather an attempt to honor lost lives. In a move to show sympathy to the Turkish side of the incidents of 1915, Sarkozy added that France understood very well “the pain suffered by the Turkish nation during World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.” The French president also touched on the issue of France's past mistakes, saying it was painful to address tragic incidents of the past but France has been able to do that. Sarkozy stressed that France has owned up to its responsibility in the slave trade, transportation of Jews from France to concentration camps, and that he officially voiced in 2007 in Algeria the vulgarity of colonialism that caused “unspeakable pain” to Algerians.
Sarkozy’s words seemed to answer Erdoğan’s criticism that France has not faced “its own dirty and bloody history.” He also criticized France for judging the history of others for political purposes, suggesting that France has a clear conscience regarding past events since it has recognized them. France considers the extermination of Jews under Nazi Germany during World War II and the Armenian deaths at the hands of Ottoman Turks genocide, but not the killings of Algerians or Rwandans under French colonial rule.
Although Erdoğan’s office gave no public response to Sarkozy’s letter, a TV show that aired an interview with the Turkish prime minister one night previous showed that Erdoğan hoped that Sarkozy’s bill might not pass in the Senate. Erdoğan noted that the French Senate’s Commission of Laws decision earlier this week showed that the denial bill was “against the French constitution.” The bill seeks punishment for anyone who rejects the term genocide as the appropriate description for the mass murders of Armenians in 1915 and of Jews around World War II, putting the 1915 incidents and the Holocaust on par, in the perspective of France.
Although a majority of French Senators appeared to lean towards a “yes” vote in Monday’s Senate debate as they decide on the fate of the denial bill, a move from the French Commission of Laws earlier this week dealt a blow to the government-initiated proposal. The Commission voted that if the bill passes as a law through the Senate, it would ultimately be incompatible with French laws, on the grounds that it would block freedom of expression in the country.
Erdoğan has also made this point since the French lower house approved the bill in December, and on Thursday night Erdoğan said he believed that the French Senate “would take into consideration the commission’s decision.” Erdoğan said the commission decision fortified the fact that the denial bill is unconstitutional by French standards.
Davutoğlu also agreed on Friday that even if the bill passes through the Senate, “it will not be able to survive,” and it will remain a scar on the intellectual history of France; a scar that “Turkey will make them remember all the time.” One day prior, Davutoğlu voiced a similar opinion, which corresponds with the commission’s vote, saying “even French laws deem the bill unlawful.” Turkey vehemently opposes passage of the bill in the impending Senate vote, which would give the bill the power of law, banning the debate surrounding the 1915 events which, by the estimation of many Western countries, constituted genocide. Turks say the killings were not intended to cleanse Armenians, but to quell a civil war and armed rebellion that broke out as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing.
French Senate Chair Jean-Pierre Bel, and head of the Commission of Law Jean Pierre Sueur both expressed that they were not content with the denial bill, which would seriously harm bilateral relations between old allies France and Turkey.
The commission vote, however, does not block the bill from being placed on the agenda of the Senate on Monday, but it is believed to influence senators. If the bill does pass, it will contradict French laws and create further controversies in France.
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