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TURKEY CONTINUES SANCTIONS ON FRANCE DESPITE COURT RULING ON "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE" BILL
Xinhua General News Service
March 5, 2012 Monday 6:40 PM EST
China
Turkey decided on Monday to continue its sanctions on France, despite
a ruling by the French Constitutional Council saying that a new law on
"Armenian genocide " was unconstitutional, local newspaper Today's
Zaman reported.
The French Senate adopted last month the law which might impose a
60,530-U.S.-dollar fine and one year imprisonment on those found
guilty of denying that the World War I-era deaths of over 1 million
Armenians under the Ottoman rule amounted to "genocide."
Following Ankara's pressure of political and military sanctions and
lobbying by Turkish politicians and businessmen in Paris, the French
Constitutional Council ruled that the law was unconstitutional, citing
relevant articles of the "1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen," the fundamental document of the French Revolution.
Shortly after the ruling was announced, Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said that the Turkish Cabinet would meet to consider
whether to restart economic, political and military contacts with
France that were frozen after the French Parliament passed the law,
according to the report.
Turkey has denounced the bill as an attack on freedom of expression
and argued that France's center-right government had supported the
law to secure the votes of some 500,000 Armenians living in France.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, however, asked his government last
Tuesday to draft a new version of the genocide-denial law after it
was struck down as unconstitutional.
During Monday's cabinet meeting, Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu said
that the previously announced sanctions and measures taken against
France must continue, the newspaper reported.
Tensions tainted relations between Paris and Ankara, which rejects
the term "genocide," insisting that the killed Armenians were victims
of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the Ottoman Empire
collapsed before modern Turkey was created.
Xinhua General News Service
March 5, 2012 Monday 6:40 PM EST
China
Turkey decided on Monday to continue its sanctions on France, despite
a ruling by the French Constitutional Council saying that a new law on
"Armenian genocide " was unconstitutional, local newspaper Today's
Zaman reported.
The French Senate adopted last month the law which might impose a
60,530-U.S.-dollar fine and one year imprisonment on those found
guilty of denying that the World War I-era deaths of over 1 million
Armenians under the Ottoman rule amounted to "genocide."
Following Ankara's pressure of political and military sanctions and
lobbying by Turkish politicians and businessmen in Paris, the French
Constitutional Council ruled that the law was unconstitutional, citing
relevant articles of the "1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen," the fundamental document of the French Revolution.
Shortly after the ruling was announced, Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said that the Turkish Cabinet would meet to consider
whether to restart economic, political and military contacts with
France that were frozen after the French Parliament passed the law,
according to the report.
Turkey has denounced the bill as an attack on freedom of expression
and argued that France's center-right government had supported the
law to secure the votes of some 500,000 Armenians living in France.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, however, asked his government last
Tuesday to draft a new version of the genocide-denial law after it
was struck down as unconstitutional.
During Monday's cabinet meeting, Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu said
that the previously announced sanctions and measures taken against
France must continue, the newspaper reported.
Tensions tainted relations between Paris and Ankara, which rejects
the term "genocide," insisting that the killed Armenians were victims
of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the Ottoman Empire
collapsed before modern Turkey was created.