IJCentral: International Justice Central

PARIS — The Turkish government and press castigated France on Tuesday, accusing the parliament of racism and a breach of France’s own free speech principles after the French Senate passed a bill late Monday effectively criminalizing the denial that the slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians in the early 20th century under the Ottoman Turks was a genocide.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will sign the bill into law within two weeks, an aide confirmed on Tuesday.

The bill has infuriated Turkey, which vigorously rejects that the killings were a planned campaign. Indeed, recognizing them as genocide is criminal under Turkish law, as an insult to Turkish identity.

In a speech in Ankara, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said French bill represented “evident discrimination, racism and massacre of free speech.” Mr. Erdogan reiterated Turkey’s intention to add penalties against France, though he did not specify what those sanctions might bear upon and also signaled that the government would wait to see the result of possible legal challenges to the bill in France.

“We are going to impose our sanctions step by step with certainty, without hesitations,” he said. “However, for now, we are still in the phase of patience as we watch how this process would shape up.”

After the French Senate vote on Monday night, Turkey’s ambassador to France, Tahsin Burcuoglu, suggested Ankara might reduce diplomatic ties by calling for his “permanent departure” from Paris.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party government briefly recalled Mr. Burcuoglu and suspended bilateral political and military cooperation with the French in late December, following the approval of the bill by the National Assembly, France’s lower parliamentary house.

France’s relations with Turkey, a moderate Muslim democracy and NATO ally, have been strained in recent years as Mr. Sarkozy, along with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, repeatedly expressed opposition to Turkey’s full membership to the European Union.

The government in Ankara argues that President Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkish membership, as well as his party’s support for the genocide bill, are aimed at appealing to the 500,000 ethnic Armenians in his country leading up to the May presidential elections.

Ankara warned that stronger sanctions — including disqualification of French companies from public contracts, cancellation of military, political and cultural functions with French institutions as well as closure of Turkish air, naval and land ports — could be permanent if the bill was implemented, NTV television reported.

The Turkish government has also considered withdrawing support for Euronews, a continuous international news network based in France, the Anatolia news agency reported on Monday. Turkey’s national radio and television network holds a 15.5 percent stake in Euronews.

Turkey’s anger resonated in various echelons of political circles on Tuesday with President Abdullah Gul strongly denouncing the legislation.

“Our bilateral relations are at a different level from now on,” Mr. Gul said on NTV. The opposition Nationalist Movement Party proposed annulment of the Turkish and French friendship parliamentary committee, as party officials lashed out at the legislation, calling it unacceptable. Turkey has proposed opening all state archives for an international committee of prominent historians to investigate atrocities during World War I when the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.

Source: NYT