France courting Turkey for increased trade relations

Speaking with Sunday's Zaman on the heels of Turkish President Abdullah Gül's official visit to France two weeks ago, during which Gül and French President Nicolas Sarkozy inaugurated the “Season of Turkey in France,” French Ambassador Bernard Emie said the high-level visit was a golden opportunity to reset strained relations between the two countries.

He described the visit as “excellent” and dismissed reports that the Turkish president was poorly received and treated unfairly.

Concerned that France is on the losing end of a bargain when it comes to tenders and government contracts in Turkey, not to mention the rising anti-France sentiment in a 70-million-large consumer market because of Sarkozy's stance on Turkey's EU bid, Paris is eager to improve relations with its NATO ally. The French ambassador lamented the fact that so much negativity has been focused on the EU membership issue while the two countries have been cooperating on a number of platforms including NATO, the United Nations Security Council and the G-20.

“Our relations are multidimensional and very much focused on cooperation albeit behind the doors sometimes,” he said, conceding that there have been ups and downs in their relations in the past. The top French diplomat agrees that they have a real public relations problem on their hands when it comes to Turkey. “We could do much better and become proactive in dispelling rumors that have nothing to do with the facts,” he underlined.

France is the second-largest investor in Turkey, and many French companies have been very active in the Turkish market for some time now. “If you discount the Netherlands, where many companies base their headquarters because of tax incentives, we are actually the No. 1 foreign investor in Turkey,” Emie pointed out.  The current trade volume between the two countries stood at about 11 billion euros last year, favoring neither side.

That did not stop Ankara, however, from imposing an undeclared embargo on French companies that were shunned from major tenders in Turkey or vetoed in international contracts for which Turkey was a major participant. French state-owned nuclear group Areva was barred from entering its bid into a nuclear reactor tender in Turkey, while Gaz de France (GDF) was vetoed by Ankara from participating in the international consortium building the Nabucco pipeline that will connect Caspian natural gas resources to the European market.

French Ambassador Emie believes that there are strong signals given by the Turkish side that those strained days are about to be over. “Turkish President Gül conveyed the message to Sarkozy that French companies are welcome to attend future nuclear tenders in Turkey,” he said, adding that he was convinced Turkey would give a green light for the GDF to join the Nabucco consortium if the international group decides to expand membership.

“I think the business environment for French companies in Turkey is ‘satisfactory' at best at this time,” he said, adding that they will work harder. He lamented the fact that French small and medium-sized companies are not very aggressive in the Turkish market as opposed to other foreign investors.

To repair relations with Turkey and promote Turkey's image in the French public opinion, France has launched a Turkish cultural season lasting nine months and covering 400 events in 80 cities across France. The iconic Eiffel Tower was lit in the Turkish colors of red and white every night from Oct. 6 to 11. “This was the first time we had done it for a foreign country within the context of a cultural season,” the French ambassador said, stressing the significance of the symbolic gesture. “Many people urged the mayor of Paris against deciding in favor of the light up, but he did not pay attention to those [people],” he said. Many French companies are listed as sponsors for the Season of Turkey in France, and business organization MEDEF extended red carpet treatment to the visiting Turkish president. Emie pointed out that there is not enough political dialogue between the countries, saying the last time the Turkish president visited France was a decade earlier. The French took longer in paying an official visit to Ankara.

The French ambassador also said France is closely working with Turkey in European aircraft manufacturer Airbus' construction of the future A350 plane and both countries are involved in the project to build the European A400M military transport plane.

Hailing Armenia rapprochement

Hailing the rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia as a breakthrough development, the French diplomat gave assurances that the Armenian diaspora living in France would not be able to block the normalization of relations between the two countries. “If it is any measure, just look at how we acted in the genocide resolution,” he said, underlining that French politicians did not cave in to the Armenian diaspora's pressure and killed the resolution in the senate. France's lower house of parliament infuriated Turks in 2006 by backing a bill that would make it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I amounted to genocide. The French Senate never ratified the bill. “I do not think the diaspora can launch a campaign against the signing of protocols between Turkey and Armenia,” the French ambassador said.

He said France is actively working with renewed dynamism within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group, which has been working for a decade and a half to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russia and the United States are other co-chair countries in the Minsk Group. “The process is going in the right direction, and you have all sides focused very much on resolving the issue with new dynamism,” he said, expressing his hope that both the Turkish and Armenian parliaments would ratify protocols.

Touching on the activities of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in France, Ambassador Emie said French authorities are cooperating closely with Turkish officials to stem PKK operations. “France is determined to fight terrorism,” he said. “Thirty-five people were condemned to jail for illegally raising funds for the PKK.” Emie stressed that there is a lot going on behind the scenes in the PKK issue, allowing both sides to exchange information and share intelligence.

Worst timing for France

When the issue of embattled businessman Cem Uzan's request for political asylum in France came up during the interview, the French ambassador said it could not have come at a worst time, as France was trying to heal the rift with Turkey and attempting to tone down the anti-France sentiment held by the Turkish public. “I did not even know him before the press reported about the case,” he noted, adding that the case has nothing to do with the French Embassy.

Uzan, a businessman who was in the past active in various branches of business from banking to media and was later chairman of the Young Party (GP), left the country in early October, fearing jail time over a fraud conviction. On Thursday, a Turkish court granted the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund's (TMSF) petition for an arrest warrant for Uzan on the grounds that he is a suspect at large.

Ambassador Emie said Uzan has only been given a three-month residence permit while France reviews Uzan's asylum request. He said the agency reviewing the asylum request is an independent body and that they will make the decision after reviewing the facts of the case. He further remarked that the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) may extend Uzan's temporary residence if it does not reach a decision in a three-month period.

Uzan and a number of his relatives have been charged with fraud by Turkish courts over the $6 billion collapse of a family bank. Motorola and Nokia are seeking $3.4 billion in unpaid debts for equipment, phones and services provided to Telsim, a Turkish mobile phone company the Uzan family once owned.