Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They
AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German
Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who
By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an
Edition:
U.S.
Africa
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Home
Business
Business Home
Economy
Davos 2012
Technology
Media
Small Business
Legal
Deals
Earnings
Summits
Business Video
Markets
Markets Home
U.S. Markets
European Markets
Asian Markets
Global Market Data
Indices
M&A
Stocks
Bonds
Currencies
Commodities
Futures
Funds
peHUB
World
World Home
U.S.
Brazil
China
Euro Zone
Japan
Mexico
Russia
India Insight
World Video
Politics
Politics Home
Election 2012
Issues 2012
Candidates 2012
Tales from the Trail
Political Punchlines
Supreme Court
Politics Video
Tech
Technology Home
MediaFile
Science
Tech Video
Opinion
Opinion Home
Chrystia Freeland
John Lloyd
Felix Salmon
Jack Shafer
David Rohde
Bernd Debusmann
Gregg Easterbrook
Nader Mousavizadeh
James Saft
Lucy P. Marcus
David Cay Johnston
Bethany McLean
Edward Hadas
Hugo Dixon
Ian Bremmer
Mohamed El-Erian
Lawrence Summers
Susan Glasser
The Great Debate
Steven Brill
Breakingviews
Equities
Credit
Private Equity
M&A
Macro & Markets
Politics
Money
Money Home
Global Investing
MuniLand
Unstructured Finance
Linda Stern
Mark Miller
John Wasik
Analyst Research
Alerts
Watchlist
Portfolio
Stock Screener
Fund Screener
Personal Finance Video
Life & Culture
Health
Sports
Arts
Faithworld
Business Traveler
Entertainment
Oddly Enough
Lifestyle Video
Pictures
Pictures Home
Reuters Photographers
Full Focus
Video
Article
Comments (6)
Slideshow
Video
Full Focus
Editor's choice
Our top photos from the last 24 hours. Full Article
Best photos of the year
Follow Reuters
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
YouTube
Read
Robinson exit to cost New York Times over $15 million
21 Dec 2011
New iPhone? No thanks, say cash-conscious Europeans
11:58am EST
Wall Street gains for third day
|
2:35pm EST
Arizona student found after 9 days stranded in snow
2:35pm EST
Impasse broken in House on payroll tax cut: Senate aide
|
4:02pm EST
Discussed
172
Ron Paul strongly defends anti-war policies
127
Slumping Gingrich promises sharper counter-punch
114
North Korea state TV says Kim Jong il has died
Watched
Baghdad rocked by blasts
1:56am EST
SocGen's wholesale arm gets a new boss for new times
5:30am EST
Japan picks the F35 as regional uncertainty rises
Mon, Dec 19 2011
France passes genocide bill, angry Turkey cuts ties
Tweet
Share this
Email
Print
Related News
Turkey blasts French genocide bill as racism, cuts ties
12:25pm EST
Turkey says "racist" bill opens wounds with France
12:22pm EST
Turkey set for spat with France over "genocide" bill
Wed, Dec 21 2011
Rights groups condemn arrests of Turkish journalists
Wed, Dec 21 2011
Dozens killed in Syria as Arab peace team due
Tue, Dec 20 2011
Analysis & Opinion
Muniland Snaps – December 20, 2011
UN condemns religious intolerance, drops ‘defamation’ line for first time in years
Related Topics
World »
France »
Related Video
France moves to ban genocide denial
12:45pm EST
1 of 2. Protesters demonstrate in front of the French consulate in Istanbul December 22, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Osman Orsal
By John Irish and Ibon Villelabeitia
PARIS/ANKARA |
Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:47pm EST
PARIS/ANKARA (Reuters) - France moved on Thursday to make it illegal to deny the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide, prompting Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings.
Lawmakers in France's National Assembly - the lower house of parliament - voted overwhelmingly in favour of a draft law outlawing genocide denial, which will be debated next year in the Senate.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described the bill put forward by members of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling party as "politics based on racism, discrimination, xenophobia."
He said Sarkozy, was sacrificing good ties "for the sake of political calculations," suggesting the president was trying to win the votes of ethnic Armenians in France in an election next year.
Erdogan said Turkey was cancelling all economic, political and military meetings with its NATO partner and said it would cancel permission for French military planes to land, and warships to dock, in Turkey.
French Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppe, speaking to journalists after the vote, had urged Turkey not to overreact to the assembly decision and called for "good sense and moderation."
Juppe said Turkey had also recalled its ambassador from France, a decision he regretted.
"What I hope now is that our Turkish friends do not overreact about the French national Assembly decision. We have lots of things to work on together," Juppe said.
Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government.
Successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the charge of genocide is an insult to their nation. Ankara argues that there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in the area.
"I don't understand why France wants to censor my freedom of expression," Yildiz Hamza, president of the Montargis association that represents 700 Turkish families in France, told Reuters outside the National Assembly.
Earlier, about 3,000 French nationals of Turkish origin demonstrated peacefully outside the parliament ahead of the vote, which came 32 years to the day since a Turkish diplomat was assassinated by Armenian militants in central Paris.
The authorities in Yerevan welcomed the vote. "By adopting this bill (France) reconfirmed that crimes against humanity do not have a period of prescription and their denial must be absolutely condemned," Armenia's Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian saying in a statement.
France passed a law recognizing the killing of Armenians as genocide in 2001. The French lower house first passed a bill criminalizing the denial of an Armenian genocide in 2006, but it was rejected by the Senate in May this year.
The latest draft law was made more general to outlaw the denial of any genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing Turkey.
It could still face a long passage into law, though its backers want to see it completed before parliament is suspended at the end of February ahead of elections in the second quarter.
National Assembly speaker Bernard Accoyer said on Wednesday that he doubted the bill would pass by the end of the current parliament, as the government had not made the bill priority legislation.
TURKISH ANGER, FRENCH ELECTIONS
The French government has stressed that it did not initiate the bill, which mandates a 45,000-euro fine and a year in jail for offenders, and says Turkey cannot impose unilateral trade sanctions.
Faced with Sarkozy's open hostility to Turkey's stagnant bid to join the European Union, and buoyed by a fast-growing economy, Ankara has little to lose by picking a political fight with Paris.
With Turkey taking an increasingly influential role in the Arab world and Middle East, especially Syria, Iran and Libya, France could experience some diplomatic discomfort, and French firms could lose out on lucrative Turkish contracts.
France is Turkey's fifth biggest export market and the sixth biggest source of its imports. About 360 French companies operate in Turkey, employing more than 80,000 people, according to export consultancy UbiFrance.
"Turkey is a democracy and has joined the World Trade Organisation so it can't just discriminate for political reasons against countries," Europe Minister Jean Leonetti told France Inter radio. "I think these threats are just hot air and we (have) to begin a much more reasoned dialogue."
The French bill feeds a sense shared by many Turks that they are unwanted by Europe and it fires up nationalist fervor. However, in a more self-confident Turkey, popular reaction has been more muted than in the past.
France has been pushing Turkey to own up to its history, just as France belatedly recognized the role of its collaborationist Vichy government during World War II in deporting Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
(Additional reporting by Pauline Mevel and Emile Picy in Paris, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Hasmik Mkrtchyan in Yerevan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
World
France
Tweet this
Link this
Share this
Digg this
Email
Reprints
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
Comments (6)
Suchindranath wrote:
Edition:
U.S.
Africa
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Back to top
Reuters.com
Business
Markets
World
Politics
Technology
Opinion
Money
Pictures
Videos
Site Index
Legal
Bankruptcy Law
California Legal
New York Legal
Securities Law
Support & Contact
Support
Corrections
Advertise With Us
Connect with Reuters
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
RSS
Podcast
Newsletters
Mobile
About
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider
An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution
A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance
Our next generation legal research platform
Our global tax workstation
Thomsonreuters.com
About Thomson Reuters
Investor Relations
Careers
Contact Us
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.