French genocide bill discriminatory and racist

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo: RIA Novosti

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday slammed as “discriminatory and racist” a French parliament bill making it illegal to deny the mass killing of Armenian by Ottoman Turks nearly a century a century ago was genocide.

Erdogan said Turkey would implement measures against fellow NATO member France “step by step.”

French FM urges Turkey to play it cool

French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, has urged the Turkish authorities to keep cool over the law that Paris has recently adopted on responsibility denying the genocide of Armenians.

Juppé told the Canal Plus TV channel that France has a host of factories in Turkey, and that the two countries are linked by major trade and economic ties.

On Monday, the French Senate voted for adopting the draft law on criminal responsibility for denying the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Breaking the law will be punishable by a prison term of up to one year, or a fine of 45,000 euros.

Modern-day Turkey is a legal successor to the Ottoman Empire.

TRT, Turkey’s state-run broadcaster, said it plans to suspend its 15.5 percent partnership with Lyon-based Euronews if France approved the bill, Anatolia reported yesterday.

(Reuters, IF, TASS)

via French genocide bill discriminatory and racist: Turkey PM: Voice of Russia.