Originally posted by Hayq
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
We may be poor but care to explain why your people born and living in Armenia become borderjumpers and flee to Turkey for jobs and food illegally? What have we got ? We are nothing as you have clearly stated
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Hrant Dink, 53
Astvadz hokin lusavor e...
Husam ays tepki hedevankov mer Bolsahaier@ yev michaskayin bedutyunner@ verchabes gartennan.
I, at times, spoke against this man for getting involved in the complex politics of Armenian-Turkish affairs. Nonetheless, I feel deep sorrow over his death. He did not deserve to die in such a manner. His mistake was attempting to engage Turks in a 'civilized' debate. I hope the world sees what we have been dealing with for a thousand years.
I hope this becomes a wake up call to all Bolsahais.
We Armenians must learn that we can not engage Turks in any kind debate, within any level. Only through armed struggle will we be able to correct the wrongs of our history.
Miyayn zenkov ga Hayots prgutyun!!!Leave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Ghosts of Massacred Armenians Could Haunt Turkey’s Chances To Join European Union
By Sherwood Ross
Turkey’s bid to join the European Union could suffer by its refusal to admit the genocide of its Armenian Christian population nearly a century ago.
When European Union leaders meet in Brussels Dec. 14-15, the debate to admit Turkey likely will hinge on, among other issues, its failure to open its ports and airports to Cyprus, which opposes all talk of membership. The Netherlands, Germany, Austria and France are cool to admitting Turkey and are backing Cyprus.
Lingering in the background, though, will be the ghosts of the Armenian genocide, a crime Turkey has denied at every turn and is still “investigating” to this day.
As recently as March, 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an “impartial study” into the genocide as if the facts of the slaughter of a milion Armenians were ever in doubt.
When the “Young Turk” nationalists created the Republic of Turkey after World War I, they refused to punish the perpetrators of the 1915 genocide. Mustapha Kemal formed a new government in 1920 that forced the Allies to sign the Treaty of Lausanne, ceding Anatolia, home of the Armenians, to Turkish control. Two years earlier Anatolia had been parceled out to Italy and Greece after the Ottoman Empire’s surrender to the Allies.
As author Elizabeth Kolbert put it in the November 6th The New Yorker, “For the Turks to acknowledge the genocide would thus mean admitting that their country was founded by war criminals and that its existence depended on their crimes.”
“Turkey has long sought to join the European Union, and, while a history of genocide is clearly no barrier to membership, denying it may be; several European governments have indicated that they will oppose the country’s bid unless it acknowledges the crimes committed against the Armenians.”
So opposed is Turkey to discussion of the subject, when the U.S. Congress sought a resolution in 2000 to memorialize the Armenian genocide, Turkey threatened to refuse the U.S. use of its Incirlik airbase and warned it might break off negotiations for the purchase of $4.5-billion worth of Bell Textron attack helicopters.
President Clinton informed House Speaker /Dennis Hastert passage of the resolution could “risk the lives” of Americans and that put an end to the bill. Like his predecessor, President George Bush has bowed down to Ankara’s wishes and issues Armenian Remembrance Day proclamations “without ever quite acknowledging what it is that’s being remembered,” The New Yorker points out.
The cover up denies Turkey’s historic victimization of some 2-million Christian residents treated as second-class citizens by special taxation, harassment, and extortion. After Sultan Abdulhamid II came to power in 1876, he closed Armenian schools, tossed their teachers in jail, organized Kurdish regiments to plague Armenian farmers and even forbid mention of the word “Armenia” in newspapers and textbooks.
In the last decade of the 20th Century, Armenians were already being slaughtered by the thousands but systematic extermination began April 24, 1915, with the arrest of 250 prominent Armenians in Istanbul. In a purge anticipating Hitler’s slaughter of European xxxry, Armenians were forced from their homes, the men led off to be tortured and shot, the women and children shipped off to concentration camps in the Syrian desert.
At the time, the U.S. consul in Aleppo wrote Washington, “So severe has been the treatment that careful estimates place the number of survivors at only 15 percent of those originally deported. On this basis the number surviving even this far being less than 150,0000…there seems to have been about 1,000,000 persons lost up to this date.”
In our own time, the Turkish Historical Society published “Facts on the Relocation of Armenians (1914-1918”). It claims the Armenians were relocated during the war “as humanely as possible” to keep them from aiding the Russian armies.
In 2005, Turkish Nobel Prize recipient Orhan Pamuk, was said to have violated Section 301 of the Rurkish penal code for “insulting Turkishness” in an interview he gave to a Swiss newspaper. “A million Armenians were killed and nobody but me dares to talk about it,” Pamuk said. Also, Turkish novelist Elif Shafak was brought up on a like charge for having a fictional character in her “The Bastard of Istanbul” discuss the genocide.
Fortunately for him, Turkish historian Tanar Akcam resides in America. His new history, “A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility”(Metropolitan) otherwise probably would land him in jail.
As there are few nations that have not dabbled in a bit of genocide, one wonders why Turkey persists in its denials? After all, genocide is hardly a bar to UN admission or getting a loan from the World Bank.
Turkey has every right to membership in the same sordid club as Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, China, and America. Why must it be so sensitive? Let them confess and sit down with the other members to enjoy a good cup of strong coffee. They’ll be made to feel right at home, as long as they don’t mention Tibet, Iraq, Cambodia, the Congo, Chechnya, Timor, Darfur, Rwanda ad nauseum. After all, there are ghosts everywhere.
--Sherwood Ross is an American reporter and columnist. Reach him at [email protected]
Source: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/arti...ew/4469/1/223/Leave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Dimmed Hopes - Turkish bid exposes EU rifts
Divisions are becoming ever more apparent as the European Union nears the moment of truth in relations with its biggest and poorest applicant country, which also happens to be Muslim. For EU leaders meeting in Brussels on December 14-15, the question will be how to punish Turkey if it fails to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus. Turkey's promise to do so allowed it to open EU membership talks a year ago. This week, several European commissioners pushed for the consequences to be spelled out in the Commission's progress report on Turkey.
According to officials, they were Markos Kyprianou of Cyprus, Stavros Dimas of Greece and Jacques Barrot of France. Others - like Viviane Reding of Luxembourg, Louis Michel of Belgium and Jan Figel of Slovakia - raised serious concerns about the cost of integrating Turkey and the human rights situation. Turkey's strongest advocates were Peter Mandelson of the UK and Charlie McCreevy of Ireland. Germany's Guenter Verheugen even argued that Turkey should be treated as a special case. That is hardly the official German line, but as a former enlargement commissioner, Mr Verheugen was bitterly disappointed when the Greek Cypriots rejected a UN plan that would have led to the reunification of the island in 2004, just days before Cyprus was welcomed into the EU.
Tough talking
In the end, the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, decided to give diplomacy one more chance, delaying a formal recommendation by five weeks. Why should we act suddenly, like an elephant in a china shop, asked Olli Rehn, the current enlargement commissioner. Instead, Mr Rehn, who is from Finland, asked everyone to back Finnish diplomatic efforts to achieve a breakthrough. Finland holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year, but Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja also has a personal stake in the long-running Cyprus dispute. His father Sakari was the UN envoy to the island when fighting between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities broke out in 1963.
More than 40 years later, Mr Tuomioja junior puts the chances of a deal at 50/50. But, with key elections next year, the Turkish government has given no indication it will budge on the sensitive issue of Cyprus. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged there could be a "period of stagnation" in ties with the EU, but ruled out the possibility of accession talks collapsing. "It's five minutes to midnight and Turkey is pursuing a risky strategy," says Camiel Eurlings, a Dutch conservative member of the European Parliament who monitors Turkey's progress.
Cyprus holds key
If Ankara does not make a gesture over Cyprus, even Turkey's friends agree there must be consequences. "Turkey must implement its obligation to all EU member states. If it fails to do so, the EU must act," said Britain's Minister for Europe, Geoff Hoon. To preserve the EU's credibility, Britain would probably back a limited freeze on only three or four policy areas in the membership talks - known as chapters - directly linked to transport and trade. Other countries, like Sweden and Italy, argue EU rules must be respected, but would rather focus the debate away from Cyprus and more on the need for Turkey to speed up political reforms.
At the other end of the spectrum, Cyprus is calling for a freeze of all membership talks. It is a view supported by politicians in France, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, the countries where most people want to keep Turkey out of the EU. In one of the toughest statements so far, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the EU should rethink its timetable for Turkey's entry bid if it refuses to comply by December.
Germans divided
In Germany, which will take over the EU presidency in less than two months, the splits go right through the ruling coalition. The Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber, leader of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), called for a total suspension of talks with Turkey, which he said was not a European country anyway. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who heads the main Christian Democratic Union (CDU) conservative party, dismissed Mr Stoiber's comments, but insisted there could not be "business as usual" if Turkey failed to keep its promise to lift restrictions on Cyprus.
In opposition, Ms Merkel advocated a "privileged partnership" for Turkey, like Mr Stoiber. In power, she remains more critical of Turkey than her foreign minister, the Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "Some in Europe want to bring about a failure of Turkish negotiations through their rhetoric," Mr Steinmeier said, "this only strengthens the view in Turkey that they are not welcome in the EU - we need to fight against this impression."
Dream turning sour
EU leaders will have to reach a unanimous decision on Turkey, like on any other important matter. One compromise solution could involve freezing talks on up to ten chapters. But common ground is hard to find. "My biggest fear," says MEP Camiel Eurlings, "is that there won't be unanimity. The difference between the positions of Cyprus and the UK is so huge that quite a big minority of countries could use the split to effectively cripple negotiations or bring them to a halt."
At first, that may not make much difference. Using its rights as an EU member, Cyprus has already been blocking technical talks for weeks. "What we have is already a suspension," says a diplomat close to the negotiations. "We already have a crisis. The atmosphere has never been so bad in any membership talks." For months, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has been warning Turkey of a "train crash".
But the membership train may already be on a dangerous course. If it goes off the tracks in December, MEP Camiel Eurlings fears relations between Turkey and Europe could suffer unpredictable damage. "Does anybody think how difficult it would be to get the train back on track," Mr Eurlings asks, "with a Europe increasingly worried about enlargement and a Turkey which is becoming increasingly nationalistic?"
Story from BBC NEWS:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Turkey condemns 'genocide' vote
Turkish lawmakers watching the lower house of the French parliament debate a bill making it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenians was genocide. (AP)
Turkey has condemned a French parliamentary vote which would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered "genocide" at the hands of the Turks. Turkey called it a "serious blow" to relations and has threatened sanctions. The vote was also criticised by the EU. The bill, tabled by the opposition but opposed by the French government, needs approval from the Senate and president. Armenia says Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million people systematically in 1915 - a claim strongly denied by Turkey. There are accusations in Turkey that the Armenian diaspora and opponents of Turkey's European Union membership bid are using the issue to stop it joining the 25-member bloc.
'Unfounded'
Turkey has been warning France for weeks not to pass the bill which was sponsored by the opposition Socialist party. It provides for a year in jail and a 45,000-euro (£30,000) fine - the same punishment that is imposed for denying the Nazi Holocaust. "Turkish-French relations, which have been meticulously developed over the centuries, took a severe blow today through the irresponsible initiatives of some short-sighted French politicians, based on unfounded allegations," the Turkish foreign ministry said.
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says many Turks are angry at what they see as double standards in the EU, where opinions are sharply divided about whether Turkey should be allowed to join. The European Commission has said that if the bill becomes law it will "prohibit dialogue which is necessary for reconciliation" between Turkey and Armenia. The official Turkish position states that many Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in fighting during World War I - but that there was no genocide.
But public debate on the issue has been stifled in Turkey. The French vote came as controversial Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. He has faced prosecution in Turkey for talking about the murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I and thousands of Kurds in subsequent years. The charges have since been dropped.
Celebration and concern
The French governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) did not back the bill, but gave its deputies a free vote. It passed by 106 votes to 19, after most deputies left the chamber in protest against what critics say is an attempt to attract votes of the some 500,000 people of Armenian descent in presidential elections next year. Ethnic Armenians in Paris celebrated the result. "The memory of the victims is finally totally respected," said Alexis Govciyan. But French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin distanced himself from the bill. It is "not a good thing to legislate on issues of history and of memory," he said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
France acts to outlaw denial of genocide
By Thomas Crampton International Herald Tribune
PARIS The National Assembly, defying appeals from Turkey, approved legislation Thursday that would make it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during and after World War I were genocide. Denounced by Ankara and criticized by the European Union, the legislation could further complicate talks for Turkey's admission to the EU.
Of the 577 members of the Assembly, 106 deputies voted in favor and 19 against, while 4 abstained and 448 did not vote at all, raising the question of whether there will be enough political will to push the legislation through the Senate. If it is to become law, the Senate must also approve the measure. The law would set fines of as much as €45,000, or about $56,000, and a year in prison for denying that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide. In 2001, France formally recognized as genocide the killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1919.
Turkey denies allegations of genocide, disputing the number of deaths and premeditation in the killings, saying that tens of thousands of Armenians and Turks were killed in chaotic civil unrest after Armenian groups supported Russia during the war. "The Turkish people refuse the limitation of freedom of expression on the basis of groundless claims," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "With this draft law, France unfortunately loses its privileged status in the eyes of Turkish public opinion."
Ali Babacan, Turkey's economics minister who also heads Ankara's talks with the EU, said he could not rule out consequences for French companies. "What happened in France today we believe is not in line with the core values of the European Union," Babacan said, adding that the government would not encourage a boycott of French goods. "As the government of Turkey, we are not encouraging something like that. But this is the people's decision." In Brussels, the European Union warned that the law could harm efforts at reconciliation over the killings.
"It would prohibit dialogue which is necessary for reconciliation on the issue," said an EU spokeswoman, Krisztina Nagy. "It is not up to law to write history. Historians need to have debate." After the vote, the government of President Jacques Chirac, which did not support the law, expressed eagerness for dialogue with Turkey and said the legislation was unnecessary and inopportune. "We are very committed to dialogue with Turkey, as well as to the strong ties of friendship and cooperation which link us to that country," said Jean-Baptiste Mattei, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry.
The Armenian issue has complicated the country's bid for EU membership. Chirac and the two leading contenders to replace him in elections next May - Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative interior minister, and Ségolène Royal, a Socialist - all say Ankara must acknowledge the genocide before gaining EU membership. Can Baydarol, a Turkish analyst of the EU, said that although the decision of Parliament seemed to have no direct effect on relations with the bloc, the hostile attitude of France demonstrated the obstacles to full membership if a consensus among EU members is necessary for a final decision on Turkey.
"Now people see that more than the technical details, political maneuvers will mark the years-long process on way to full membership," Baydarol said. "I think, at a public level, not the EU but France is going to pay the price of this decision." Meanwhile, officials in Azerbaijan, which has close cultural and economic ties with Turkey, denounced the vote. "The discussion of the bill is absurd and the presentation of the issue is illogical," Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said at a news conference, according to Interfax. "The adoption of the bill contradicts basic human rights and freedoms because people have a right to freedom of thought and freedom of obtaining information, and the bill may violate and limit the freedom of thought."
Azerbaijan fought a war in the early 1990s with Armenia over possession of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region inside its internationally recognized borders that both nations claim. The French legislators voted against a backdrop of political jousting before presidential elections next spring, with politicians in both major camps split on the wisdom of the genocide bill, but all aware that the issue of Turkey's potential entry into the EU is political dynamite. Two prominent national newspapers, Le Monde and Le Figaro, opposed the law. Le Monde said that while denying the genocide of xxxs in Germany amounts to anti-Semitism and is worthy of criminal prosecution, arguments over the Armenian genocide should be resolved through diplomatic means.
Although most of France's top politicians, from Chirac on down, supported the EU's planned constitution, the French rejected it last year in a referendum that was also seen as a vote against further EU expansion. The problem for politicians seeking to succeed Chirac is how to oppose Turkish entry without taking on the xenophobic tones of the far-right. Royal, the leading Socialist presidential contender, said Wednesday that Turkey "obviously" would have to "recognize the Armenian genocide" if it wished to enter the EU, adding: "My opinion is that of the French people." She supported the genocide bill.
But two other senior Socialists, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Jack Lang, had reservations about the bill, which raises questions of freedom of speech in the same way as France's legislation making denial of the Holocaust a crime. On the center-right, Sarkozy is against Turkish EU entry but kept silent about the Socialist-sponsored genocide bill. His aides were split, with François Fillon against it but Patrick Devedjian, who is of Armenian descent, strongly backing it, according to Le Figaro.
With roughly 500,000 citizens claiming Armenian origin, France has one of Europe's largest Armenian populations. Prominent French people of Armenian descent include the singer Charles Aznavour, the former prime minister Édouard Balladur and the chief executive officer of the telecommunications company Alcatel, Serge Tchuruk. "Today we took another very important further step to fight against those who deny the Armenian genocide," said Harout Mardirossian, spokesman for the Coordination Council for Armenian Organizations in France. "Armenians have fought long and hard for this law in France." Mardirossian emphasized that the law should not be taken as anti- Turkish.
"This law is not intended to be against Turkey, but against extremists in all countries, including Turkey," Mardirossian said. "We now have a tool to use against those who deny Armenian genocide, just like the law against denying the genocide in Germany." His organization has filed three lawsuits in recent years against people denying the Armenian genocide. Successful suits included those against a historian, Bernard Lewis, and an encyclopedia, Quid, while a suit against a Turkish Embassy Web site failed due to diplomatic protections, Mardirossian said.
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Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/12/news/france.phpLeave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Chirac calls for Turkey to recognise WW1 Armenian genocide
President Jacques Chirac has begun a two day visit to Armenia. The French leader paid his respects at a monument to thousands of people who were killed in the area during the World War One. Chirac used the occasion to urge Turkey to recognise the 1915 to 1919 massacres at the hands of the former Ottoman Turk regime. He said "All countries grow up acknowledging their dramas and their errors." According to Armenian sources, more than 1.5 million people died in mass killings and deportations. They claim the deaths amounted to genocide. But Turkey, which wants to be a member of the EU, continues to reject this and says the total number of deaths were nearer a quarter- of- million and sparked by an internal conflict.
Source: http://euronews.net/create_html.php?...e=382599&lng=1Leave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Well the poetic Turkish community in Germany will probably keep working to make sure it's never recognized.Leave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
Germany's role in the Genocide has been well documented. At the very least they gave the bastards their approval and things like weapons and logistics, not to do what they did to Armenians but to fight the Russians, the English. But still the logistics, weapons played a role in the Genocide I'm sure. Germans know this and perhaps it could explain their cold feet.Originally posted by skharaLeave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
^^^
So what's Germany's game here?
They have not officially recognized the Armenian Genocide -- not like France, Russia, or Poland, they are very careful about what wording they use, but they have made some somewhat pro-Armenian statements in the past. Although I don't recall Germans ever being unfriendly to turks.Leave a comment:
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Re: Why Turkey will never be admitted into the European Union
GERMAN PARLIAMENTARIAN: TURKEY HAS TO RECOGNIZE WHAT IT HAD DONE TO ARMENIAN PEOPLE DURING OSMAN EMPIRE
Berlin, September 4. ArmInfo. Turkey has to recognize the crime
against the Armenian people during the Osman Empire, Jorg Tauss, the
member of Social-Democratic party of Germany, the deputy Chairman
of the German-Caucasian Parliamentary Friendly Group, told ArmInfo
correspondent during the press-conference in the German Bundestag.
The politician noted that Germany is interested in a stable
development of the South-Caucasian region. "Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
are of interest to Germany from the viewpoint of economy and politics
first of all. This interest is not limited only by oil availability
in Azerbaijan, the region is of interest from the viewpoint of
geographic position, strategic importance and closeness to Iran",
he noted. According to him, the region is also considered a cradle
of mankind, which is of great interest. "The discussions at the
political level are being held on the problem between Armenia and
Azerbaijan around Nagorno Karabakh conflict, as well as the closed
borders and relations with Turkey. All the listed aspects adversely
affect the development of relations", the German Parliamentarian
said. "The secret is in a combined development of countries of the
South Caucasus as a region in whole ", Jorg Tauss said. He added that
"Armenia-Turkey closed borders is a scandal since all the countries
of the South Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, suffer",
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