Turkey revelling in self-glorification

The Turkish government is trying to block a law planned by the French parliament that would make denial of the genocide of the Armenians a punishable offence. The fact that Ankara sent a group of members of parliament with the sole task of influencing the vote on Monday is symptomatic of Turkey's aggressive foreign politics, writes the left-liberal daily Der Standard: "Threats, thumping the table, revelling in self-conferred glory. Anyone who doesn't sign the 'Ankara criteria', the catalogue of Turkish interests drawn up by head of government Tayyip Erdogan in mockery of the EU accession criteria, is punished: an 'ice age' in relations with the EU, which refuses to understand that Cyprus cannot be allowed to take over the EU rotating presidency in 2012. Then there's economic sanctions and the recall of the Turkish ambassador for France, which had the temerity to acknowledge the extermination of a million Armenians in 1915/1916 for what it was. The truth is it's the Turks and not the French who need a law that recognises this as genocide."

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