World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (December 23, 2011)

The Washington Post reported ties between France and Turkey, strategic allies and trading partners, abruptly unraveled Thursday after French legislators passed a bill making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago constitute genocide. The bill strikes at the heart of national honor in Turkey, which denies the genocide label and insists the 1915 massacres occurred during civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, with losses on both sides. But it’s seen as a matter of principle for some French politicians, and a matter of long-overdue justice for the half a million people in France of Armenian descent, many of whom had relatives among the 1.5 million Armenians killed. The French bill still needs Senate approval, but after it passed the lower house, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan halted bilateral political and economic contacts, suspended military cooperation and ordered his country’s ambassador home for consultations. Turkey argues France is trampling freedom of expression and that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is on a vote-getting mission before April presidential elections.

The same agency reported that Russia urged the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to investigate civilian deaths in Libya from NATO’s bombing campaign, a move the United States immediately dismissed as “a cheap stunt” to distract from Moscow’s failure to condemn the Syrian government’s ongoing killing of protesters. The sharp exchange reflected the deep division in the council over the NATO campaign which the U.S., France, Germany and others hailed for saving hundreds of thousands of Libyan lives, but which Russia, China and the African Union have strongly criticized. Russia and its supporters argue that NATO misused the limited council resolution imposing a no-fly zone and authorizing the protection of civilians as a pretext to promote regime change in Libya. Libya’s longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi was ousted after 42 years, captured and killed in October.

The Guardian goes on the theme of Turkish-French relations cooling and reports that a majority of the 50 MPs present in France's lower chamber approved the bill which would make denying any genocide – but implicitly the Armenian genocide – a criminal offence punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of €45,000 (£37,500). The bill was put forward by an MP from Sarkozy's rightwing UMP party, but the issue was supported by socialists. "This is politics based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia. This is using Turkophobia and Islamophobia to gain votes, it raises concerns regarding these issues not only in France but all over Europe," Erdogan said, accusing the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, of deliberately courting the large Armenian-French vote ahead of next year's election. A Turkish official indicated the freeze would not affect the country's membership of NATO, and that the withdrawal of military co-operation would be at a bilateral level.

The Turkish information agency Hurriyet published the article headlined “Ankara sees Iran hand in Iraq tensions.” It says that Turkey believes Tehran is behind the Iraqi PM’s recent challenge to Vice President al-Hashimi as it hopes to protect its regional hegemony in the wake of an international campaign against its closest regional ally, Syria. Although already deeply involved in the turmoil in Syria, Turkish diplomats have now placed Iraq at the top of their agenda out of fears that instability in its southeastern neighbor could endanger its political and security interests in the region. Turkey has also called on Washington to impose more pressure on al-Maliki to prevent the emergence of a sectarian conflict in the country. “The Americans should be aware that if not stopped, this trend will lead to the partition of Iraq,” a government official said.