Xinhua News Agency , China
October 13, 2006 Friday 2:00 PM EST
Turkish president expresses sadness over France’s Armenian genocide
bill
Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer expressed sadness over a French
bill that would make it a crime to deny Turks committed genocide
against Armenians, the semi- official Anatolia news agency reported
on Friday.
The president felt deeply sad over the French national assembly ‘s
approval of the bill on Thursday, Sermet Atacanli, a senior advisor
to President Sezer was quoted as saying.
"Mr. President hopes that the bill would be received with logic in
the next legislative level and hopes that the bill would not become
an actual law in France," Atacanli said.
The advisor noted that Sezer wishes the Turkish-French relations
would not get hurt and basic rights of freedom of expression would
not be negatively affected by the bill.
In addition, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also
condemned the approval of the controversial bill, saying, "France has
stained its own history and democracy by adopting the bill about
so-called Armenian genocide."
Meanwhile, Erdogan called on people to be calm over boycotting
French-made products.
"Some groups call on people to boycott French-made products. Will it
be really effective? Actually, we should be calm and take steps
consciously," said Erdogan.
"There are nearly 500,000 Turks living in France. They should be as
influential as Armenians," he stressed.
Despite warnings from Ankara that it would hurt the bilateral
relations between Turkey and France, French lawmakers on Thursday
voted 106 against 19 for the bill, which calls for up to a year in
prison and fines of up to 56,000 U.S. dollars for anyone who denies
the Armenian genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turk during World War
I.
The bill must be passed by the Senate and signed by French President
Jacques Chirac.
Turkey has always denied that up to 1.5 million Armenians were
subject to genocide in the period between 1915 and 1923.
However, it does acknowledge that up to 300,000 Armenians died during
fighting and efforts to relocate populations away from the war zone
in eastern Turkey.
According to the Zaman daily, Turkey is the fifth largest customer of
French goods outside the European Union. France’s export to Turkey
values at 5.9 billion dollars while its import from Turkey remains at
3.8 billion dollars.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
