IF FRANCE ADOPTS THE DRAFT LAW, TURKEY DOES NOT LOSE ANYTHING, GUL

Turkish Press
Oct 25 2006

ANKARA – "If French Parliament adopts the draft law (which envisions
denial of so-called Armenian genocide as crime), Turkey will not lose
anything, but France will lose not only Turkey but also many other
things," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters after
his meeting with Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell of the Bahamas in
Ankara on Wednesday.

Upon a question about French Parliament’s debate the draft law
tomorrow, Gul said that Turkey has exerted every type of efforts on
all levels to warn France.

"Turkish politicians, businessmen, the government, Parliament, ruling
and opposition parties, deputies and intellectuals have all exerted
efforts. Also the EU stated that this issue is very wrong. I hope
France will not be the victim of small inner policy tools. I hope
France, which is the homeland of freedoms and liberty as well as
the pioneer of freedom of thought and expression, will not become
a country where people are imprisoned as they release the documents
and express their thoughts," Gul noted.

Gul added that turning of EU’s locomotive country and pioneer of
freedoms into such a country will concern France more than Turkey.