Turkey warns France on Armenian genocide vote

[Pleepleus]

Vive la France!


ANKARA - Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday urged French lawmakers to reject a bill making it illegal to deny the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, which comes up for a vote next week.

Lawmakers in the lower-house National Assembly voted overwhelmingly last month in favor of a draft law outlawing genocide denial. That prompted Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings with Paris and briefly recall its ambassador for consultations....

The law is expected to be passed, although Turkey has been lobbying aggressively over the last few weeks for senators to back down with suggestions that the result in the Senate will be closer than originally anticipated...

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=254486

[Kachah]

The Turks don't get it - in France it's the Armenian diaspora that's big. Turkish votes are in demand in Germany. See if the Germans pass the Armenian genocide denial law.

[Pleepleus]

The Turks don't get it - in France it's the Armenian diaspora that's big. Turkish votes are in demand in Germany. See if the Germans pass the Armenian genocide denial law.

You are absolutely right, Kachah. Also, France loves to play holier than thou with other countries. Recently Sarkozy gave Israel a hard time about being a Jewish state, as if he is not aware that Jewish can refer to a religion but also an ethnic group. And you will notice he doesn't criticize Muslim states or countries like Canada and the UK which have official religions.

Of course some of the Turks in Germany are actually Kurds. I wonder how they feel about the Armenian Holocaust. One one hand it is a black eye to Turkey. On the other hand some of their grandfathers took part in it.

[Kachah]

Recently Sarkozy gave Israel a hard time about being a Jewish state, as if he is not aware that Jewish can refer to a religion but also an ethnic group. .
He probably is aware having some Jewish family roots but he is talking to the people who are largely ignorant. The notion of Jews not being an ethnic group but merely a religion, an "ideology", has been sold very successfully. Many times I have persoanlly encountered people - otherwise educated and commanding high posts with large salaries etc - who were truly surprised to hear that the Jews are people pretty much like the English or the Spanish - in fact, they considered the Americans and the Australians more ethnically bound that the Jews from different parts of the world. This is a crafty plot of the left - it delegitimizes Israel completely.



Of course some of the Turks in Germany are actually Kurds. I wonder how they feel about the Armenian Holocaust. One one hand it is a black eye to Turkey. On the other hand some of their grandfathers took part in it.Of course. THe whole issue is not as black and white as the Holocaust, I don't know much about it. It happenned almost 100 years and it's been poorly documented. I am just appauled that it's been used as some sort of a political trade-off.

[Mediocrates]

Anything to make the AKP scream and pout and pound their fist is fine.

[Cellis]

AKP calls this a "political game" for coming up elections in France and blame French politicians for hunting votes. Can somebody remind them previous Turkish elections and AKP's attack on Israel? AKP and their voters deserve it. This is my point of view.

[Chris Keller]

I think the French forget that half their country did the German's bidding during the War, and everyone knew what Hitler was all about.

[Mediocrates]

Hypocrisy is fine. France is the most opposed of all EU states to Turkish membership. The Armenians are a weapon with which to bludgeon Turkey. And it puts them on notice that ethnic cleansing of the Kurds is being noticed.