Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek has sent a letter to his French counterpart Bernard Accoyer expressing Turkey's uneasiness over a bill on the incidents of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire, which is set to be debated at the French senate next week.
Diplomatic sources close to the matter have told the Anadolu Agency that Cicek warned Accoyer about the damage Turkish-French relations suffer if the senate approved the bill, which makes denial of the Ottoman-era incidents of 1915 punishable in France with a prison term of one year and a fine of 45 thousand euros.
"Duty of national assemblies is not to re-write history. This issue should better be left to historians," Cicek reportedly said in his letter.
A similar bill -- proposed by the Socialist Party -- was approved in 2006 by the lower house of the French assembly but the French senate rejected to debate the bill last May.
Diplomatic sources close to the matter told the Anadolu Agency that the bill had the backing of French President Nicolas Sarkozy who had recently expressed support during a visit to Yerevan last October ahead of the presidential elections next year.
Turkish Foreign Ministry has rejected the attempt as a pre-election campaign move.
AA - Rahmi Gündüz
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