ERDOGAN CALLS FOR BUSINESSPEOPLE TO HELP BLOCK ARMENIAN BILL
New Anatolian, Turkey
May 10 2006
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for representatives
of French companies operating in Turkey to actively lobby against the
Armenian bill that will come up for debate in the French Parliament
next week.
Erdogan hosted company representatives yesterday in a move to
contribute to Turkish efforts to block a possible French approval of
the bill during next week’s Parliamentary session. The bill foresees
prison terms of up to one year and fines of up to 45,000 euros to
deniers of the Armenian genocide claims.
The Turkish prime minister also called for all French businesspeople
and parliamentarians to leave the controversial issue for evaluation
by historians.
French company representatives, for their part, presented Erdogan
with a copy of a letter they sent to French parliamentarians urging
them not to damage economic relations between the two countries by
approving the Armenian bill.