Newsroom Finland, Finland
Oct 13 2006

Rehn criticises France’s Armenian genocide bill

13.10.2006 at 15:00

Olli Rehn, the European Union’s enlargement commissioner, said in a
news conference Friday that the French parliament’s adoption on
Thursday of a bill making it a crime to deny that the killing of
Armenians in 1915-17 by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide was
harmful as it made a historical debate in Turkey more difficult.

Mr Rehn, the Finnish member of the commission, added that the bill,
if approved by the French senate, would probably halt the nascent
debate in Turkey.

Turkey says the killing of 1.5 Armenians was not a genocide.