Turkish parliament has issued a declaration condemning French parliament's move to debate a bill that makes denial of the Ottoman era incidents of 1915.
"It is a grave and a historic mistake for the French National Assembly to agree to debate a biased, unjust and false bill that penalizes rejecting so-called Armenian genocide. We condemn the prospective debate of the bill which hurts Turkish people deeply," Meral Aksener, a deputy speaker of the Turkish parliament told a general session on Tuesday, reading the joint declaration.
The French bill, which is set to be debated at the French parliament on Thursday, 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.
The declaration said the bill was serious blow on freedom of expression, on scientific knowledge as well as on human rights and freedoms.
"This is a sign of insincerity on part of France to attack on Turkish history with false allegations before facing their own history. If the French parliament is interested in history, it should first start by shedding a light on what had happened in Africa, in Rwanda and in Algeria," the declaration said.
The declaration was signed by the parliamentary group heads of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, and opposition Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party.
AA
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