Turkey Imposes Sanctions for French Genocide Bill
时间：2011-12-23 06:29:47
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Turkey has announced several sanctions against France, following the French parliament's passing of a bill that will make it a criminal offense1 to deny Ottoman Turkey committed genocide against Armenians in the past century.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan angrily
condemned2 the French parliament for passing the bill criminalizing denials of the Ottoman Armenian genocide.
"France will not speak of Voltaire and Montesquieu anymore I guess," Erdogan quipped. "They have stepped over their ideals of equality, in this voting there is
racism3, discrimination, and doing politics over discrimination against foreigners."
Along with announcing the recall of Turkey's ambassador from Paris, Erdogan listed several trade, military and political sanctions intended to punish France.
The measures were largely
symbolic4, including the canceling of seminars, and banning the French navy from using Turkey's
territorial5 waters. The French air force also will have to ask permission for each flight in Turkish air space.
The leaders of Turkey's two main
opposition6 parties also condemned the decision.
Turkish-Armenian Etyen Mahcupyan, a political
columnist7 for the Zaman newspaper, said the French parliament's vote threatens the interests of many Armenians.
"It will not serve any purpose to bettering the relations between Turkey and Armenia, and conditions of the Armenians in Turkey. Because it will bring a nationalist backlash," said Mahcupyan.
Relations between Turkey and Armenia currently are frozen.
The genocide denial bill punishes anyone who denies a genocide recognized by the French state with up to a year in jail and a $58,000 fine. That includes the mass
killing8 of Armenians by Turkey's then-Ottoman rulers during World War I.
Ankara denies the genocide charge, saying the deaths occurred in a civil war, in which many Turkish Muslims also died. Ankara calls for the
controversy9 to be resolved by historians rather than politicians.
The controversial bill still needs to be
ratified10 by the French Senate and President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Ankara is continuing to lobby against the measure, and Erdogan warns if the effort fails he is ready to take further measures against France.
He says the announced measures are the first step, and if the French law is ratified, his government will
implement11 more sanctions immediately. He said he hopes common sense will prevail and these events will not take the Turkish-French relationships to a point of no return.
Despite such tough language, observers say French politicians are seeking a share of 500,000 ethnic-Armenian votes for next year's presidential elections, and warnings from Turkey may be ignored.
Supporters of the bill say they are pushing for it to become French law by February.
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