Politician confident of French bill’s approval

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Yalick expresses confidence the bill would be approved.

Amid a growing rift between France and Turkey over a recently passed bill to criminalize the denial of Armenian genocide claims, French deputy Valeri Boyer’s advisor Garo Yalick expressed his full confidence the draft law would be approved.

“I have full confidence that this law is going to be approved under any circumstances,” Yalick, a Turkish-born advisor of Armenian origin to Marseilles deputy Boyer, told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Sixty-five deputies and 60 senators in France have appealed to the country’s Constitutional Council to overturn the bill that was drafted and presented to the French Parliament by Boyer of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party.

“They are exercising their democratic rights in relation to the [draft] law, but let there be no misunderstandings in Turkey. The deputies and the senators who oppose the law are also in agreement that genocide was committed against Armenians in 1915. It ought to be remembered that France officially recognized the genocide in 2001,” Yalick said.

They are trying to blow this law out of all proportion in some quarters in Turkey, he said, adding that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s leading rival Francois Hollande had also lent his support to the bill.
“President Sarkozy was accused of political maneuvering prior to the elections. It ought not be forgotten that one of Sarkozy’s most potent rivals Hollande also backed the bill. There was no distinction between the left and the right, as everyone in France is in agreement over the definition of the events of 1915,” he said.

Galick further claimed the annulment of the bill by the Constitutional Council would also amount to the rejection of four other laws.

“In case this law is annulled [by the court] the Jewish Holocaust Law is also going to turn null and void. This is a law construed upon the norms of the European Union [EU],” Yalick said.

It was a futile effort to discuss whether the bill would be annulled as it was not a new law but rather filled a legal gap, he said.