Turkey urged to acknowledge Armenian killings as genocide

French presidential hopeful Segolene Royal said that Turkey must recognise the mass killing of Armenians early last century as a genocide if it hopes to join the European Union.

Royal, a Socialist, also said she was in favour of a bill to go before France’s parliament today that would make it a crime to deny that the killings amounted to genocide.

Turkish anger over the bill forced a delay in the initial debate, which had been set for May, as politicians caved in to warnings by Turkish authorities that bilateral ties would suffer if the bill became law.

Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul said France would compromise its values if the measure became law.

“We’ve done everything we can,” Gul said. “If this passes Turkey will lose nothing, but France will first lose Turkey…It will turn into a country that throws people in jail for expressing their thoughts, for expressing their ideas, for stating what is in historical documents.”

Royal, a politician hoping for the Socialist Party’s nomination as 2007 presidential candidate, aligned herself with the official stance that Turkey must recognise the killings as genocide if it wants EU membership.

“It is obvious that if Turkey wants to confirm its candidacy and one day enter Europe, it is obvious that it must recognise the Armenian genocide,” she said at a news conference called to set out her positions on Europe.

She added that she was for the legislation going before parliament. “We have no lessons to give anyone and, at the same time, something has to be done.”

About 40 Turkish demonstrators gathered at Place de la Concorde, facing the National Assembly, to denounce the bill making it a crime to deny Armenian genocide.

“The Armenian genocide is an imperialist lie,” said Yalcin Buyukdagh, who identified himself as the presidential counsel of the Workers Party in Turkey.

“If France votes yes to this law, it will have officially taken a position as an enemy of Turkey,” he said.

Politicians in Ankara, looking to retaliate against Paris, discussed proposals to recognise an “Algerian genocide” during France’s colonial rule there, which ended in 1962 after a brutal war.

Armenians claim that as many as 1.5 million people were killed between 1915 and 1923 in an organised campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey. Turkey contends that a large number of people died in civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.