16/12/2011 12:26
Turkey will recall its ambassador to France
Turkey will withdraw its ambassador to France if Paris adopts a law that makes it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide, state media quote a Turkish official as saying, the Associated Press reports.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event many international experts regard as genocide and which France recognized as such in 2001.
France has urged Turkey to recognize the massacre as genocide and the lower house of the French Parliament will debate on Dec. 22 the proposal. Denying the genocide would be punishable by up to a year in prison and 45,000 euros ($58,500) in fines.
France banned the denial of the Holocaust in 1990. The bill being debated would put denying the Armenian genocide on par with Holocaust denial, the source informs.