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Chirac: Turkey Should Use Term Genocide

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  • Chirac: Turkey Should Use Term Genocide

    CHIRAC: TURKEY SHOULD USE TERM GENOCIDE

    Associated Press
    Sept 30 2006

    YEREVAN, Armenia -- French President Jacques Chirac urged Turkey on
    Saturday to acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians in the early
    20th century as genocide.

    Armenians say that as many as 1.5 million of their ancestors were
    killed in 1915-1923 in an organized campaign to force them out of
    eastern Turkey and have pushed for recognition around the world of
    the killings as genocide.

    Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but says
    the overall figure is inflated and that the deaths occurred in the
    civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. But Ankara
    is facing increasing pressure to fully acknowledge the killings,
    particularly as it seeks membership in the European Union.

    "Should Turkey recognize the genocide of Armenia to join the European
    Union?" Chirac asked, echoing a question posed by a reporter at a
    joint news conference with Armenian President Robert Kocharian.

    "Honestly, I believe so. Each country grows by acknowledging its
    dramas and errors of the past."

    Chirac's comments went further than in the past, using the word
    genocide directly for the first time. In 2004, Chirac said Turkey
    should recognize the killings and make "an effort at memory" to join
    the EU. France's parliament has officially recognized the killings
    as genocide.

    Chirac has personally supported Turkey's entry into the 25-nation EU,
    though many French have grave misgivings, fearing an influx of cheap
    labor and questioning Turkey's human rights record.

    Earlier Saturday, Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, laid a wreath at
    the Memorial to the Victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Ottoman
    Turkey and visited the Genocide Museum and Institute. Chirac wrote
    a single world in the guestbook: "Remember."

    Chirac was paying the first visit by a French president to the former
    Soviet republic of Armenia since in gained independence. France has
    some 400,000 citizens of Armenian origin, and plans several events
    in the coming year linked to Armenian culture and history.

    "Can one say that Germany, which has deeply acknowledged the Holocaust,
    has as a result lost credit? It has grown," Chirac said, urging Turkey
    to take inspiration from that and other examples.

    Kocharian thanked France for giving "the force of law" to recognition
    of the killings as genocide.

    Chirac and Kocharian then participated in the opening ceremony for
    French Republic Square in the center of Yerevan and attended a concert
    by Charles Aznavour, a famous French singer of Armenian origin.
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