Turkey urges France on ‘genocide penalty’

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

A fresh legislative attempt in the French Parliament aiming at punishing those who refuse to recognize 1915 incidents as genocide caused Turkey’s reaction against France whose bilateral ties recently showed improvement. 

“At a moment when Turkey and France have entered into a process in which they could increase their cooperation at bilateral and international level, we hope no unrecoverable steps will be taken,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement over the weekend.

Numerous attempts to penalize the denial of the Armenian genocide claims have failed in France since the early 2000s after the country had officially recognized the 1915 incidents as genocide. As the presidential elections loom in France, both the ruling and oppositional parties revisit these efforts to gain the support of Armenian diaspora in France. A draft law in this has been approved in a French parliamentary commission Dec. 7. 

“The French administration is well aware of how sensitive this issue is to us,” said the Foreign Ministry statement. The statement also called on France to contribute to the solution of this problem between Turkey and France through dialogue.