Posted on 12/13/2004 12:15:13 PM PST by eluminate
France has said it will ask Turkey to acknowledge the mass killing of Armenians from 1915 as genocide when it begins EU accession talks.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said Turkey had "a duty to remember".
Armenians say 1.5 million of their people died or were deported from their homelands under Turkish Ottoman rule.
France is among a group of nations that class the killings as genocide. Turkey denies any organised genocide, claiming they were quelling a civil uprising.
Mr Barnier said France did not consider Turkish acknowledgement a condition of EU entry, but insisted his country would raise the issue once talks opened.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss plans to invite Turkey for accession talks, Mr Barnier said Turkey "must carry out this task as a memorial".
In addition, France believes that accession talks should not begin before the second half of 2005, Mr Barnier said. Turkey has pushed for immediate negotiations.
"I believe that when the time comes, Turkey should come to terms with its past, be reconciled with its own history and recognise this tragedy," Mr Barnier said.
'So-called genocide'
His comments drew no immediate official response from Turkey, which has consistently denied orchestrating genocide and the Armenian figures.
A foreign ministry spokesman in the Turkish capital, Ankara, told Reuters that Turkey has never and will never recognise "any so-called genocide".
Armenia alleges that the Young Turks, in 1915 the dominant party in the Ottoman Empire, systematically arranged the deportation and killing of 1.5 million Armenians.
Turkish relations with independent Armenia, which borders Turkey to the north, have long been coloured by the issue.
Around 300,000 Armenians live in France, more than in any other European country, and community leaders have pledged to pressure French President Jacques Chirac on the genocide issue during Turkish accession negotiations.
France passed a law officially recognising the Armenian genocide in 2001, cooling relations with Turkey and scuppering a major arms deal.
Another 14 nations, including Switzerland, Russia and Argentina, also classify the killings as genocide.
Japan never admitted Nanking.....
Right after France admits its police were more-than-helpful rounding up Jews for the gas chambers.
And when Turkey says "no", France will reply, "Oh, OK," and vote in favor of their EU admission, anyway.
Wouldn't that chap the Dims' and ACLU's butts...
I look at it this way... it is history we need to get past it.... Not past the fact that it happened, but the fact that almost 100 years later making people that had no direct connection to the event pay the debt of their ancestors...
Plus France ought to be treading very carefully where ever they go...The need to clean up their backyard before they go dictating to other countries what they need to do.
This attitude of moral superiority the French have adopted in recent years is reall beginning to PI$$ ME OFF!!!
Ping for later
france is just pi$$ed because Turkey won't join them in the war for terrorism.
Armenians say 1.5 million of their people died or were deported from their homelands under Turkish Ottoman ruleShouldn't they have right of return? </SARC>
They've got a lot of damned Gaul demanding anyone to admit anything.
Muslims killing raping and ethnically cleansing Christians - why would anyone care?
1.5 mil got killed off in reality there cant be a return.
consider that the population is around 5 or 6 million its a lot of people in 1915 it was about half the population.
I think if Germany admitted to what they did Turkey should fess up as well.
How many different governments has Turkey gone through in the last 90 years? Why should this government "admit" anything about any government that it replaced?
This obsession with apologizing for the mistakes of history is getting pretty silly.
I'm sure they could equally demand an apology from all of ancient Christendom for the Crusades...
IIRC the Turkish position was that the genocide indeed happened but that the republic is not responsible because it was a crime commited by the Ottoman Empire. Kinda like blaming Nixon for a war that Kennedy started I guess (*scratches head*).
Uh, this is a joke, right? No?
Well, I can't wait for this to play out. France may get dragged kicking and screaming into the WOT after all.
I am sitting on the edge of my seat anxiously awaiting the next passionate speech from Dominique Villepain!
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