11 October 2006

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called on France to look to its own colonial past in Africa instead of attacking Turkey over an alleged genocide of Armenians during World War One. "France must look at what has happened in Senegal, Tunisia, Djibouti, Guinea, Algeria ... I don't recall that these fanned anger which history covered with ashes," he said in a speech.

Turks are angry over a French bill, proposed by the Socialist opposition, that will be debated in Parliament on October 12. If approved, the law would make it a crime to deny the genocide of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks.

Armenians in Turkey also have raised their voices against the French bill, wary that it will antagonize Turks and further strain an already tense debate on the issue.

Turkish politicians are discussing a number of possible retaliatory measures if France adopts the bill, including criminalizing the denial of genocide in Algeria which Paris ruled firmly from 1830 to 1962.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has repeatedly called on France to admit its part in the massacre of 45,000 Algerians who took to the streets to demand independence as Europe celebrated victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

"Let no one doubt that the Turkish Republic state and its people are capable of breaking this systematic lie machine and of dispersing these clouds of disinformation," Erdogan said.

"There can be no legal justification for making it a crime to say a lie is a lie."

But Erdogan signaled that Turkey would not pursue a tit-for-tat policy over genocide allegations, though his government has already warned that the bill would badly damage bilateral ties.

"Some of our friends say 'France did this, so we should retaliate,'" he said. "But we're not among those who clean dirt with dirt. We're among those who clean off the dirt with clean water."

Erdogan repeated past calls to Armenia to jointly research the killings by opening the historical archives of both countries to historians, complaining that Armenia had not responded to his requests to do so.

Erdogan said the proposed French law was inconsistent with the principle of freedom of expression.

Turkey's foremost Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, who has been tried repeatedly in Turkey for saying that Turks committed genocide against Armenians, said passing the French bill would be a mistake.

"It only shows that those who restrict freedom of expression in Turkey and those who try to restrict it in France are of the same mentality," Dink said in remarks to the liberal daily Radikal.

Dink, editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, was handed a six-month suspended sentence by a Turkish court last year for "insulting Turkishness" in an article about the 1915-1917 massacres.

Dink said he was ready to defend freedom of expression even if it means running the risk of imprisonment in France.

Another Armenian journalist, Etyen Mahcupyan, said Turks see the proposed law as an imposition on them to accept the genocide and feared the French move could scupper a fledgling, timid debate in Turkey to question its past.

"Initiatives like the one in the French Parliament are awkward," he told AFP. "They push the Turks closer to the state and make them more vulnerable to manipulation." 

Some 100 Turks representing two different political parties gathered in front of the French Embassy in Ankara Tuesday, calling for a boycott against French goods. - Agencies