TURKEY THREATENS SANCTIONS IF FRANCE ADOPTS GENOCIDE BILL
ZeeNews, India
Oct 8 2006
Ankara, Oct 08: France risks being barred from economic projects in
Turkey if it adopts a controversial bill on the massacres of Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said
in remarks published on Sunday.
The draft law, to be debated in the French Parliament Thursday, calls
for five years in prison and a hefty fine for anyone who denies that
Armenians were the victim of a genocide during World War I.
"The information we have is that the adoption of the Bill is quite
a high possibility," Gul told the largest-selling Hurriyet newspaper.
If the Bill is passed, he said, French participation in major
economic projects in Turkey, including the planned construction of a
nuclear plant for which the tender process is expected to soon begin,
will suffer.
"We will be absolutely unable to have (such cooperation) in big
tenders," Gul said, adding that he had "openly" warned his French
counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy about the repercussions of the bill.
In remarks to the Yeni Safak newspaper, Gul said, "The government’s
reaction and the general reaction of the public will be inevitable
if the developments continue as they are."
"The French will lose Turkey," he said.
A senior lawmaker has warned that the Turkish Parliament may also
retaliate with a law branding as genocide the killings of Algerians
under French colonial rule and introducing prison terms for those
who deny it.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with representatives
of french companies doing business in Turkey, urging them to lobby
French lawmakers to vote down the bill.