Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Armenian Turkish relations in crisis
by BBC News, 3 February, 2001
Posted: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 01:11 am CST

Turkey is reported to have barred Armenian aircraft from using its airspace, forcing delays in commercial flights in and out of the capital Yerevan.

The decision follows the barring of French firms from a number of lucrative Turkish defence contracts, in retaliation for a new French law recognising the 1915 massacre of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Turkey insists the Armenian death count of one and a half million people is inflated, although it concedes that an unspecified number of Armenians were killed or displaced during a period of civil unrest.

In Iran, the parliament is due to consider a bill prepared by two ethnic Armenian MPs, which would formally recognise the 1915 massacre as genocide.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

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