OIC group to shun French ‘genocide’ bill

PALEMBANG, Indonesia / WASHINGTON

The OIC, led by Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Parliamentary Union plans to criticize French bill.

Lawmakers from member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have agreed to denounce a French law criminalizing denial of Armenian genocide claims in a final declaration of their conference, Anatolia news agency reported.

“This is going to be the first joint response from an international meeting to the French bill which was adopted by the French Senate,” said Emrullah İşler, head of the Turkish delegation at the OIC parliamentary assembly. The OIC Parliamentary Union has decided to include a paragraph in the final declaration of their 7th conference in Palembang, Indonesia, that shuns the French denial bill as “virtually non-existent” after a proposal by Turkish delegates to the conference and the backing of other members of the OIC Parliamentary Union. 

Armenian Diaspora criticizes Clinton’s remarks on the bill

Meanwhile, the Armenian Diaspora group criticized U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her remarks on the French bill. “The Obama-Biden administration – with Secretary Clinton’s latest remarks – continues to dig itself deeper and deeper into a hole of complicity in Turkey’s genocide denial,” said Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian according to the Armenian website Asbarez.