Approval of a French bill that penalizes denial of the Ottoman era incidents of 1915 risked damaging trade relations between Turkey and France badly, a Turkish lawmaker has warned.
"Cooperation areas between the two countries on various fields such as energy projects and the Airbus project could be affected negatively from this bill," Volkan Bozkir, head the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee, told reporters after concluding contacts with French officials in Paris on Tuesday.
A group of Turkish lawmakers head by Bozkir met with French officials including Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's diplomatic adviser Jean-David Levitte as well with Bernard Accoyer, head of the French parliament, to ward off the bill from being approved by the French National Assembly.
"It will be much harder to mend ties once they are broken. Today, Turkey and France need each other more than ever. We attach great value to the relations which we do not want to be shattered because of the bill," Bozkir said.
The bill makes denial of Ottoman era incidents of 1915 punishable in France with a prison term of one year and a fine of 45 thousand.
Diplomatic sources close to the matter have said that the bill had the backing of 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.
A similar bill -- proposed by the Socialist Party -- was approved in 2006 by the lower house of the French assembly but the Senate rejected to debate the bill last May.
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