Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

France Warned To Dump Armenian Genocide Bill
by Miami Herald, Jan 13 2001
Posted: Monday, January 15, 2001 07:44 pm CST

ANKARA -- Turkey told France ``for the last time'' Friday to scrap a bill recognizing the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide and warned of unspecified reprisals.

``We are warning France for the last time on this issue and urging it to abandon this erroneous path which is aimed at hurting the Turkish nation in front of history,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said.

The bill, which has unleashed a torrent of criticism from Turkey, is scheduled to be debated in the French parliament's lower house, the National Assembly, on Thursday. It was adopted in the upper house, the Senate, in November despite opposition from the government, which fears it would damage France's relations with Turkey.

On Monday, a delegation of Turkish parliamentarians visiting Paris warned of unspecified reprisals if the bill becomes law.

Turkey categorically rejects genocide claims and says 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in what was internal fighting during the dissolution years of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians maintain that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred between 1915 and 1917.

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