ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL IS "FOOLISH" – FINNISH FM

Newsroom Finland, Finland
Oct 16 2006

Erkki Tuomioja (soc dem), the Finnish foreign minister, said in an
internet diary entry posted Saturday that the French parliament’s
decision to pass a bill making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide
was "foolish".

"When I say that I regard the decision to be foolish and hope for
its rapid withdrawal it has nothing to do with what happened to the
Armenians in Turkey," Mr Tuomioja said.

"Personally I consider genocide to be the right word to describe what
happened and hope that the Turkish would be prepared to accept this
as well. However, parliaments and governments are not to intervene
in it by legislating which historical truths are to be allowed and
which not."

Mr Tuomioja added that the bill would increase the power of hardliners
in Turkey.