Seventy-two signatures have been collected so far, although only 60 were enough, Le Figaro writes.

With a vote of 127 in favor and 86 against, France’s Senate passed on January 23 criminalizes the denial of the genocides which this country has formally recognized.

This bill sets a one-year prison sentence plus a 45-thousand-Euro fine for anyone who denies these genocides. According to the regulations, the French President will ratify it within fifteen days of the Senate’s decision. And Turkey had announced earlier that if the bill were to pass, it will impose a number of sanctions against France.

Constitutional Council can censor the law which it considers unconstitutional if 60 appeals from the Senators are received.

The Council will decide whether the law is constitutional in a month.

The French Senate adopted bill criminalizing the Armenian Genocide denial after long debates on Monday.

President of France will ratify the law in 15 days after receiving the finally adopted law from the government. He can ask the parliament to review the full law or certain articles. The review cannot be rejected.

Last December the French Parliament adopted the bill penalizing denial of genocides, including the Armenian Genocide. The law introduced by MP Valerie Boyer, in case of violation, intends one year of imprisonment and a fine amounting to €45,000.

The French parliament is to vote on a bill on Thursday making it illegal to deny that the 1915 killing of Armenians during World War I was genocide. The bill, which is expected to pass, provides for a one-year prison term and a fine of $58,000 (45,000 euros) to anyone who publicly denies it was genocide.

The vote in the French National Assembly has stirred a diplomatic frenzy and French and Turkish politicians are jumping into the fray.

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“This proposed law targets and is hostile to the Republic of Turkey, the Turkish nation and the Turkish community living in France,” Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister wrote in a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Reuters reports.

During a Saturday news conference, Mr. Erdogan suggested that France ought to investigate her own role and actions in colonial Africa, including Rwanda.

Turkey maintains that the proposed bill is a political ploy by Sarkozy’s political party to win the votes of 500,000 Armenians in France ahead of next year’s parliamentary and presidential elections. Sarkozy has also been an outspoken opponent of Turkey desire to join the European Union.

Jean Leonetti, the European Affairs Minister of France, dismisses such allegations and says that opposition Socialists will endorse the bill as well. “It has been nearly 100 years since the Armenian genocide took place, those responsible are dead, it is simply a matter of recognizing a fact of history,” he told Radio Classique, The Telegraph in London reports.

Ersin Onulduran, chairman of the department of international relations at Ankara University, told Today’s Zaman, a Turkish daily, that “only historians and archival experts should pass judgment on the merits of historical events.”

Although there is little consensus, Armenians say that about 1.5 million people were killed during the mass deportations of 1915-16.

The Turkish government acknowledges the death of many Armenians, yet, it denies that Ottoman forces deliberately exterminated them. Turkey considers the numbers as inflated and says that Turks were also killed due to the upheaval that followed the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

Many Turks, disappointed and disillusioned by European delays over entry into the EU, are now embracing a more assertive rhetoric.

“I want to state clearly that such steps will have grave consequences for future relations between Turkey and France in political, economic, cultural and all areas,” Erdogan said according to Reuters. While Turkey implicitly threatens to boycott French products if the bill passes, it has ruled out imposing trade sanctions.

So far this year, bilateral trade between Turkey and France is estimated at more than $13.5 billion. About 1,000 French companies operate in Turkey.

“We have to remember international rules and with regard to Turkey it’s a member of the WTO (World Trade Organization) and is linked to the European Union by a customs union and these two commitments mean a non-discriminatory policy towards all companies within the European Union,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero, Reuters reports.

In 2006, a similar bill was introduced and approved by the French National Assembly but was later dropped by the Senate. In France, any legislative initiative requires the endorsement of both parliament and the Senate to be enacted.

The bill will be submitted for French Senate’s confirmation.

ISTANBUL. – Turkish press widely covered Taraf daily’s columnist Roni Margulies’ funny story about three unlucky Turks, who were found guilty of wearing Emporio Armani t-shirts and thus carrying out Armenian propaganda.

In his article, Margulies presents the three Turks’ self-defending speeches made in the court. “…a merchant asked me why I’m wearing that t-shirt and called the police…I don’t think I was making propaganda,” said the first defendant.

The second defendant noted that he already gave testimony to the gendarmerie, insisting: “I didn’t have ulterior motives…That t-shirt is a very well-known Italian brand…I don’t find myself guilty.”

The third defendant likewise did not find himself to be guilty, underscoring that the t-shirt was a gift from his mother, since it is a famous Italian brand.

The article also notes that the three translators, who had come as a result of a public announcement by Town Hall of Avsha Island, where this incident occurred, confirmed that Emporio Armani means “Armenian Empire,” and subsequently the defendants were sentenced to life in prison.

Roni Margulies also wrote this story might sound improbable, but stated that, aside from the court ruling, rest of the story is completely true.

“Russia was not going to hurt Armenian people’s feelings,” Areshev said. He stressed Erdogan’s visit to the Russian Federation has a broad agenda.

“Special emphasis will be placed on economic issues, as economic cooperation is beneficial to both states,” the expert said.

According to Areshev, geopolitical issues, including Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution and Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, will also be discussed within the framework of the visit. “However, no critical breakthrough is expected at the meetings of Russian and Turkish officials, as their decision depends on other players too,” Areshev noted.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visits Moscow on March 15. He will meet with Russian senior officials during his visit. According to some Armenian politicians, Erdogan’s visit to Moscow was planned for March 16 to mark the 90th anniversary of the Treaty of Moscow.

New Kars Mayor blocked the programs on protection of the Armenian historical buildings initiated by his predecessor Naif Alibeyoglu. Homeless are gathering in the old Armenian houses near Kars fortress, breaking windows and doors of the buildings. The local residents are indignant at these acts of vandalism and appealed to the Mayor demanding that destruction of the old buildings should be prevented. In reply to complaints, the head of Kars department on culture and tourism Hakan Doganay stated that protection of the mentioned buildings is not under the authority of his department, as they belong to the city hall.

The reason for Russia’s desire to emphasize its role in the South Caucasus is Turkey’s becoming increasing active in the region recently. “Russia will never agree to share its dominant role in the region, particularly in the Karabakh conflict, with a third country,” she said.

Manvel Sargsyan, an expert for the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, stressed that Gryzlov’s statement can be considered in the context of an agreement reached between Moscow and Ankara during the recent mutual visits by the two states’ leaders.

“Over the last month, Russia’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh has been hard to explain. Many questions have arisen which have never been answered,” the expert said. RA President Serzh Sargsyan’s Brussels address to NATO to step up efforts in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process is indirect evidence Russia and Turkey consider the peace process in the context of their bilateral relations.”The reason for Serzh Sargsyan’s must have been his forecasts concerning the plans of Ankara and Moscow,” the expert said.

During his recent visit to Yerevan, Speaker of the RF State Duma Boris Gryzlov stated specific decisions concerning the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be made in the near future.

He stressed that clear steps are being made and prerequisites for decisions concerning the settlement are available. It is natural to discuss the NKR’s status during the talks, Gryzlov said. He stressed that the issue of territories controlled by the Armenian side is being discussed as well.

French journalist, geopolitics expert, Bernard Guetta stated at the conference, “It is now highly unlikely that Turkey can join the EU. At least, not until 25-30 years. In the crosshairs “Islamist violence that has significantly cooled the European Union” and the prospect of an exponential Muslim immigration. An enlargement would bring to disorder. The boat is full,” he said, independent French journalist Jean Eckian told.
Bernard Guetta, (prize in 1981), is the supporter of Turkey’s accession to the EU.

Rather than risk a similar fate, the Armenian girl’s mother and aunt took their children to the nearby banks of the Euphrates River, said their prayers and threw themselves into the raging waters.

All of them drowned except for Vergine, who managed to cling to the branch of a weeping willow tree. She was rescued by a Kurdish family and ultimately taken to an American orphanage.

Djihanian’s story, as told by her granddaughter, Nora Hovsepian, will be included for the first time in the U.S. Congressional Record as part of a new campaign by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, to collect and document accounts of Armenian genocide survivors who came to America.

“She kind of gave me a mission … it was a mission for me to tell her story,” Hovsepian, an Encino attorney, said of her late grandmother. The elder woman shared the ordeal for the first time when her granddaughter was 10 years old.

“I think she would be proud of the fact that I lived up to that mission and had gotten her story in the public domain,” Hovsepian added.

Schiff said his effort to collect and document stories of survivors and their families has two aims. First, it’s to use the Congressional Record as a method of documenting these histories while families can get some first-hand accounts from survivors.

“It’s a great way to document not only the genocide,
but the story of a very large community of immigrants of the United States, where that group came from, the circumstances to which they came for a better life, the persecution from which they are fleeing,” Schiff said.
“It’s a part of the American story and it seems to me to be very fitting to be a part of our Congressional Record.”

He also said it aims to make members of Congress familiar with individual cases of the Armenian genocide and thus encourage movement on Schiff’s bill, H.R. 252, which calls on the U.S. president and the government to properly recognize the atrocities that occurred. The Armenian genocide, which was carried out by the Ottoman Turks, began in 1915 and resulted in about 1.5 million deaths.

“If it’s necessary to document all 1.5 million of these stories to move members of Congress, then that’s what we’ll do,” Schiff said.

While the Armenian genocide has been recognized by more than 20 nations and the European Parliament, it has not been formally recognized by the U.S. Congress in 25 years, Schiff said.

“Every year, the Turkish lobby fights this tooth and nail,” he said. “It’s a very well-funded campaign of denial.”

Schiff is calling on survivors and their relatives from around the country to submit their personal stories, which will be included along with his own statement to the Congressional Record, he said. A copy of the official account will be sent to participating families, he said.

It’s not the first time such stories are being told and archived, but Schiff said he believes it’s the first time “the Congressional Record is being used as a venue to document the (Armenian) genocide.”

Arax “Zizi” Gregory, an Armenian woman who works as a Los Angeles County unit clerk in Pasadena, said she thought Schiff’s project was a great idea.

Gregory, whose maternal grandfather lost at least seven brothers in the genocide, said she hoped Schiff’s project would have an impact around the world.

“It will help a lot to get our rights in this genocide,” she said. “Some countries still don’t accept that the genocide happened. They ignore this.”

Stories and memories of the Armenian genocide can be e-mailed to Mary Hovagimian at mary.hovagimian@mail.house.gov in Schiff’s Pasadena office.

brenda.gazzar@sgvn.com