TURKEY KEEPS FRANCE SANCTIONS DESPITE COURT RULING ON “GENOCIDE” BILL
Journal of Turkish Weekly
March 6 2012
Turkey
Turkey has decided to keep sanctions on France it imposed after French
assembly endorsed a bill making it a crime to deny the so-called
“Armenian genocide”, government spokesman said on Monday, Today’s
Zaman reported.
Bulent Arinc, who is also deputy prime minister, told reporters
following a cabinet meeting on Monday that controversial French bill
on “Armenian genocide” was brought to the agenda of the meeting. He
welcomed the ruling of the French Constitutional Council which said
last week that genocide-denial bill is “unconstitutional” and violates
freedom of speech.
Shortly after the ruling was announced, Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said the Cabinet would meet to consider whether to
restart economic, political and military contacts with France that
were frozen after the French Parliament passed the law on Jan. 23.
Turkish officials argued that France’s center-right government had
supported the law to secure the votes of some 500,000 Armenians
living in France. Ankara denounced the bill as an attack on freedom
of expression.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked his government last Tuesday to
draft a new version of the genocide-denial law after it was struck down
as unconstitutional. “The President of the Republic considers that
[genocide] denial is intolerable and must therefore be punished,”
his office wrote in a statement.
“He has asked the government to prepare a new draft taking into account
the decision of the Constitutional Council,” the statement added.
Arınc downplayed Sarkozy’s second attempt to bring a modified version
of the genocide-denial bill to the agenda of the Parliament, saying
that the French Assembly will go to recess on Tuesday before campaign
for presidential elections slated for April.
Arınc said Davutoglu said during the cabinet meeting that previously
announced sanctions and measures taken against France must continue.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress