Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Turkish FM Praises French Annulment Of "Genocide" Bill

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Turkish FM Praises French Annulment Of "Genocide" Bill

    TURKISH FM PRAISES FRENCH ANNULMENT OF "GENOCIDE" BILL

    Xinhua General News Service
    February 28, 2012 Tuesday 1:15 AM EST

    Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday praised the
    annulment by the Constitutional Council of France of a law that would
    incriminate people who deny the mass killing of the Armenians in 1915
    was "genocide."

    "The French Constitutional Council has passed a ruling that is in line
    with the French Constitution's notion of universal human rights and
    European values which we all defend," Davutoglu was quoted as saying
    by the semi-official Anatolia news agency.

    Davutoglu expressed gratitude for French lawmakers who had appealed
    to the constitutional council for the annulment of the denial law
    and for their "principled stance on human rights."

    "This ruling avoided a split between Turkish and French people
    and intellectuals, and the Constitutional Council has made a great
    contribution to the continuation of our traditional friendship in
    the right course," Davutoglu said.

    "We hope that this ruling will be a lesson to those who attempt to
    forge a political leverage over histories of societies," the foreign
    minister said.

    He added that the ruling also contributed to the establishment of an
    open platform where historical issues could be discussed more freely,
    noting that it would also help relations between Turkey and Armenia.

    French parliament passed the bill last month, which would impose
    a 60,530-U.S.-dollar fine and a year in prison on those who deny
    that the deaths of over one million Armenians under the Ottoman rule
    amounted to "genocide."

    Tensions tainted relations between Paris and Ankara, which rejects
    the term "genocide," insisting that the killed Armenians were victims
    of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the Ottoman Empire
    collapsed before modern Turkey was created.




    From: A. Papazian
Working...
X