TURKISH MFA CONDEMNS PASSAGE OF ARGENTINA ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL
Jeannie Shawl
The Jurist, Univ of Pittsburgh, School of Law
Dec 18 2006
[JURIST] The Turkish government has condemned the passage [JURIST
report] of legislation in Argentina which refers to the mass killings
of Armenians [BBC Q/A] in Turkey around the time of World War I as
genocide and establishes a day of annual commemoration on April 24.
In a statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Turkey said the bill
"is an example of falsification of history." The Argentinean bill must
still be signed by the president and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan [official profile; BBC profile] has already urged the president
not to do so, saying the bill is in violation of international law
[Turkish Daily News report; JURIST report].
PanARMENIAN.Net has more.
The Argentinean bill follows closely on the heels of controversial
French legislation touching on the same issue. In October, the French
National Assembly approved a bill [JURIST report] criminalizing
any refusal to characterize the Armenian as genocide, but it still
needs approval by the French Senate and President Jacques Chirac
[official profile, in French] to become national law. Many believe
that will never happen, however, as both Chirac and the European
Union have separately and publicly denounced the bill, and many French
observers view it as a direct violation of the nation’s tradition of
free speech. Chirac has already offered an apology [JURIST report]
over the bill to Erdogan.