TURKEY CALLS ON FRANCE TO HALT ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL

Jerusalem Post

Dec 20 2011

ANKARA – Turkish President Abdullah Gul called on France on Tuesday
to drop a parliamentary bill making it illegal to deny the 1915 mass
killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey was genocide.

Tension has risen between Paris and Ankara in the last week over
a draft law put forward by a member of French President Nicolas
Sarkozy’s party to be debated in parliament on Thursday.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan wrote a letter to Sarkozy
last week warning political and economic relations would suffer
grave consequences if the bill is passed. But it is not clear what
unilateral steps Turkey, a WTO member, can take.

“We ask France to immediately give up the initiative that will
bring it into a position where it is does not respect … freedom of
expression,” Gul said in a statement.