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Brussels Shies Away From Turkey-Armenia Genocide Dispute

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  • Brussels Shies Away From Turkey-Armenia Genocide Dispute

    BRUSSELS SHIES AWAY FROM TURKEY-ARMENIA GENOCIDE DISPUTE
    By Teresa Kuchler

    EUobserver.com, Belgium
    May 19 2006

    The French parliament on Thursday suspended a vote on a law that would
    criminalise denial of the alleged Turkish genocide of Armenians in
    the early 1900s, with Brussels shying away from seeing the event as
    a political criterium for Turkish EU entry.

    In 2001, French lawmakers passed a bill which accuses the Ottoman
    Turks of committing genocide against the Armenians between 1915 and
    1923, with Armenians asserting the campaign cost 1.5 million lives.

    As a consequence, French MPs were on Thursday (18 May) set to vote on a
    law similar to already existing legislation against holocaust-denial,
    which could see an individual facing a sentence of up to five years
    in prison and a ~@45,000 fine.

    The president of the French parliament, Jean-Louis Debre, however
    interrupted the session in the middle of a heated debate, saying
    there was "no time" to deal with the initiative put forward by the
    socialist opposition party.

    The announcement caused uproar in the visitor's grandstand, where
    dozens of members of the French 400,000-strong Armenian minority
    clapped their hands for over five minutes, while shouting "The vote,
    the vote!"

    For its part, Ankara denies the genocide charges, recognising only
    500,000 Armenian deaths during the Ottoman war, and rejects the
    genocide tag saying both sides suffered severe losses in the war.

    Addressing the plenary in Paris, French foreign minister Philippe
    Douste-Blazy following his party's line, stressed the "serious
    political consequences" an adoption of the law would mean.

    "The Armenian cause is righteous and it should be defended and
    respected. But the national representation must keep France's
    interests in mind, and the methods it uses to defend its principles,"
    Mr Douste-Blazy told deputies.

    Ankara has announced that Turks could boycott French products and
    French firms could lose lucrative contracts if the legislation is
    passed, just as the country did in 2001 when the alleged genocide
    was officially recognised by French law.

    Political criteria in EU talks?

    The topic has come up several times in the discussion on a future
    possible EU membership of Turkey, which started accession negotiations
    last autumn.

    A number of European parliament reports urging Turkey to admit to
    the genocide have been adopted by MEPs since as far back as 1987.

    In September last year MEPs backed a resolution on the matter to
    be forwarded to the European Commission, which monitors Turkey's
    readiness for EU accession, urging the latter to include the genocide
    in Ankara's EU membership negotiations with Brussels.

    "The proposal that the recognition of the alleged Armenian genocide
    as a political criteria has arisen from time to time throughout the
    accession process with Turkey," a commission official told EUobserver.

    Brussels has however so far taken a hesitant approach to include
    conditions on historical events as political criteria for EU accession,
    because of the European continent's motley war and border history.

    The official said that during the bloc's last enlargement round,
    several eastern European member states had- and in some cases still
    have- ongoing disputes about "who did what to whom during the war",
    and that therefore it was important to Brussels to stay out of such
    disputes.

    As for Armenia, the official said "We do not take a stance on the
    Armenian case, we leave it to historians to study what happened."

    The official said a number of EU countries were sceptical to a
    commission defining historical events, explaining that to add such
    a criteria to the current demands would need unanimity among member
    states.

    He pointed out however that the commission has underlined the
    importance of "good neighbourly relations".

    The so-called "accession partnership" text, adopted by EU member
    states in January this year, suggests that candidate states "address
    any sources of frictions at their borders".

    "That is the closest we get to addressing the matter," the commission
    official said.

    Some MEPs have followed along the same line of argument, pointing out
    that it would be insensitive and unfair to demand political criteria
    for Turkey other than those used for the last round of enlargement.

    "The recognition of the Armenian genocide should not be political
    criteria for EU accession of Turkey," leftist German MEP Feleknas Uca
    told Euobserver, adding that compliance with the so-called Copenhagen
    Criteria should continue to be the sole measure of EU-accession
    for Turkey.
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