World press on French-Turkish relations (July 4, 2012)

Today Hurriyet published an article headlined "Ankara, Paris committed to opening a new page in ties." The author of the article, Serkan Demirtas, notes that amid all the sound and fury over Syria another very important development in Turkish foreign policy will take place this week in Paris. He means the coming meeting of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

"At the bilateral meeting, France’s expectation is that the military sanctions Turkey imposed after France’s parliamentary panel approved the bill penalizing the denial of Armenian genocide on December 22nd 2011 will be lifted. Although Erdoğan called for the removal of these eight sanctions, his instruction has not yet been effectuated. French military planes cannot use Turkish airspace, and vessels are still forbidden to enter Turkish territorial waters. The French Defense Attaché is still on the blacklist of the Chief of General Staff. France expects that Davutoğlu will formally announce the removal of these sanctions during the talks in Paris," the article reads.

"In return, Ankara’s expectation is the removal of France’s block on five negotiation chapters of Turkey’s EU membership bid. Fabius will likely tell his Turkish counterpart that the new administration is not against blocking Turkey’s accession talks, as Hollande stated in his election campaign. However, the removal of the blocks would take some time. And due to the fact that Greek Cyprus is EU term president for the second half of 2012, the two sides can spend this time effectively working on these chapters and completing preparations for the Irish term presidency in 2013," the author says.

"Apart from all of these positive issues, there is no doubt that the strong Armenian diaspora will continue to exert pressure on French lawmakers to adopt a law penalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide until 2015, the centennial of the so-called genocide. The fact that the French Constitutional Council nixed the last such attempt in April will surely make future moves more difficult, but that will not douse efforts by some devoted French lawmakers in the future. The Davutoğlu-Fabius meeting will also address this potential, and will seek ways to best avoid a future potential crisis," the author believes.