French lawmakers recognize Armenian genocide, antagonize Turkey

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

French lawmakers recognize Armenian genocide, antagonize Turkey

Associated Press, 05/29/98 15:22

PARIS (AP) - French lawmakers voted unanimously Friday to formally
recognize the 1915 killings of ethnic Armenians in Turkey as a
genocide - a move that drew sharp protests from Turkey.

The motion now goes from the National Assembly to the Senate. If it
passes there, France would become the first major European country to
use the term ``genocide'' to describe the deaths of an estimated 1.5
million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey between 1915 and 1923.

Genocide is the systematic annihilation of a racial, political or
cultural group. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide,
insisting instead that they were the result of a civil war.

Turkey strongly criticized the motion and suggested it will embolden
Armenian militants, who killed 34 Turkish diplomats and relatives in
the 1970s and early 1980s.

``Terrorist acts against Turkish diplomats in France will escalate,''
Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said Friday. ``Therefore, we are
asking the French government to increase security at Turkish
diplomatic missions.''

Five of those fatal attacks were carried out in France, including a
1983 attack on Orly airport that left eight people dead and 54
injured.

Turkey's president, Suleyman Demirel, said the motion had ``no meaning
other than misrepresenting the historical facts.''

``I invite the French Senate to use its common sense and correct this
wrong decision,'' he added.

Armenia's charge d'affaires in France, Christian Ter Spephanian,
called the vote ``a message of hope for all peoples in the world who
see their right to memory challenged.''

He said it could incite other countries ``to give the moral reparation
the Armenian people legitimately aspire to.''

Animosity towards Turkey in particular and Muslims in general remains
strong in Armenia, where Christianity is the state religion.

A landlocked nation in the Caucasus Mountains, Armenia has been part
of various empires, including the Mongol, Persian, Ottoman and Soviet.

Armenia gained independence for a brief period after 1918, but was
then incorporated into the Soviet Union. It regained independence
during the Soviet collapse in 1991.

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
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