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Turkey warns France over genocide bill

Angelique Chrisafis

Paris: The French Parliament has been warned it could undermine relations between the E.U. and Turkey if it passes a law on Thursday making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during the First World War.

The draft bill, which is to be debated by the National Assembly, was put forward by France's Opposition Socialist party, and recommends that anyone who denies the mass-murder of Armenians between 1915 and 1917 was genocide should face a year in prison and a euro 45,000 fine.

"Serious consequences"

Olli Rehn, the commissioner in charge of Turkey's E.U. membership negotiations, warned this week the law could have ``serious consequences'' for E.U. relations with Turkey. He said it would jeopardise efforts by Turkish intellectuals to develop an open debate on the Armenian question.

Ankara has deemed it ironic that France is preparing to punish those who express a particular view of history at a time when Turkey is under heavy E.U. pressure to change some of its own laws which are viewed as restricting freedom of expression. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday referred to the proposed law as a ``systematic lie machine''. Turkey recalled its ambassador to France in May after the Socialist party first presented the bill in Parliament.

Turkish politicians have since warned that French-Turkish trade links will suffer if the bill is adopted. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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