Turks Protest the Bill

"LandepNews"

Turks Protest the Bill

Turkey reacted in anger on Tuesday to the passing of the genocide denial law by the French Senate on Monday, which stipulates that whoever denies that 1.5 million Armenians were killed at the end of WWI could go to jail to up to five years and be fined with 45,000 euros.
After many attempts to dissuade the French senators from voting the bill, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said that the French senators that backed the law were “racist” and promised to retaliate.
Speaking to the lawmakers from his party, Erdogan said that the law was unjust, discriminatory and racist. The prime minister added that his country would take a step by step approach on France, alluding to the fact that there would not be a swift response to the European country.
The situation is sure to create a rift between Turkey and France, which are two of the most important allies within NATO, at a time when the Western countries need an approach to Turkey, a country that is assuming a prominent role in the newly configuring Middle East.
The French are not thought to be easily removed from the Middle East market, where they are very competitive in arms sales and public tenders.
The reaction of the Turkish authorities comes in conflict with its own reaction in December, when they reacted immediately to the passing of the bill in the National Assembly. At that time, the Turks downgraded their diplomatic ties with Paris, and promised to do the same about the economic and military cooperation.
Turkey is the seventh-largest trade partner of France, with $1.48 billion good exchange. Turkish media speculated that Turkey could take it step by step in the sense that it could end the French bidding for governmental contracts, close air and water space for French transportation, and even recalling ambassador from Paris.
Turkey cannot impose sanctions on France because France is a member of the World Trade Organization, but the above mentioned forms of sanctions could hurt its interests in Turkey.
There are Turkish officials who believe that the PM has refrained from announcing sanctions because he may be waiting to see if the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, will sign it into law, which should happen within 15 days.
French interior minister said that the passage of the bill on Armenian genocide denial had the backing of both presidential hopefuls, Nicolas Sarkozy and opposition leader Francois Hollande. The signing of it into law is expected to be a formality.
The French interior minister added that in a republic like France, when a bill passes the parliament, it is signed into law by the president.
French foreign minister in turn played down the importance of the bill, after voicing opposition to it. Alain Juppe urged Turkey to keep their cool, and not make any hasty gesture.
The spat between France and Turkey stroke a personal note, as the Turkish PM Erdogan reminded that Sarkozy’s grandfather was an Ottoman Jew, whose forefathers had fled Spain from the Spanish Inquisition, Wall Street Journal reports. Erdogan said that in this case Sarkozy cannot ignore Ottoman tolerance, manifested over the ages.
The French bill and the subsequent conflict between the two countries were commented by the European Union also. Speaking on the issue, European Commissioner for Enlargement, Stefan Fule said that it was not the place of the European Commission to pas judgments about an issue between a member state and a candidate state, but it his opinion the matter should be addressed by historians not by politicians.
Fule added that not only should it be referred by historians, but that the historians should work through dialogue, and by putting facts together. Commissioner’s commission comes in perfect agreement with what the Turkish prime minister had urged the French to do.
In a letter to the Turkish authorities, Sarkozy was urging the officials in Ankara not to take it personally and not to overreact, while the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu replied over the last weekend that the matter of the Armenian genocide be handled by historian, not by politicians.
Turkish leaders accused Sarkozy of wishing to touch a sensitive spot of the Armenian community in France, which is of 500,000 persons, in view of the following elections. However, given that the Socialist contender Hollande agrees to the denial genocide bill too, the version of Sarkozy slamming Turkey out of his repulsion to the idea of the Muslim state adhering to the EU begins to hold water, especially with the EU officials.
The Armenian genocide is called and recognized as such by 20 countries around the world, and refers to the demise of 1.5 million Armenian people at the end of the WWI. Turkey has always contended that the demise of those people had never been planned by the Ottoman Empire, but was the result of a series of clashes with the disbanding Ottoman military. Many of the people counted among the dead, Turkish authorities argue, are Ottomans.
The issue of condemning the genocide of the Armenians was raised in Israel, with the supporters of the cause contending that it is unacceptable for a country that has gone through a genocide itself to turn a blind eye to this horrific crime that preceded the Jewish Holocaust.
The issue was procrastinated as long as the Turks and the Jews were enjoying a series and multi-level ties, being discussed behind doors in various commissions of the Knesset. After the ties with the Turks were downgraded, the issue was moved at the education committee of the parliament, which is a commission with a public exposure, which has already angered Ankara.

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