TURKEY: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan calls French genocide bill racist and anti-Islamist and threatens further sanctions

Record ID: 217550

  • Title: TURKEY: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan calls French genocide bill racist and anti-Islamist and threatens further sanctions
  • Date: 24th December 2011
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (DECEMBER 23, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CONFERENCE TURKISH PRIME MINISTER TAYYIP ERDOGAN ARRIVING AT PODIUM AUDIENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) TURKISH PRIME MINISTER TAYYIP ERDOGAN SAYING: "We took first measures against this racist, anti-Islamist attitude and annnounced them yesterday. We will take gradual measures as long as the current attitude is mai
  • Embargoed: 8th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2QOAGJTCA5BY41RXJK2HPEVGU
  • Story Text: Turkey piled pressure on France on Friday (December 23) after French lawmakers passed a bill making it a crime to deny genocide, vowing to continue to take retaliatory steps and issuing a veiled threat against French investments in Turkey.
    Turkey's prime minister Tayyip Erdogan criticized France for approving a bill in a voting session attended by only 50 lawmakers. Erdogan called on French President Nicolas Sarkozy to hold another session with all members of his party group.
    "This kind of voting is not serious. If you have courage, you enter parliament with all members of your party group and vote." Erdogan said.
    Turkey slammed the bill shortly after the vote and said Ankara had recalled its ambassador to France for consultations and had cancelled all joint economic, political and military meetings. On Friday, Erdogan vowed to take more steps.
    Branding the vote as racist, and anti-Islamist, Erdogan said: "We will take gradual measures as long as the current attitude is maintained and implement them determinently," he said without elaborating.
    Parliamentarians in France's National Assembly - the lower house of parliament - voted overwhelmingly in favour of a draft law outlawing genocide denial on Thursday, which will be debated next year in the Senate.
    Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu likened the bill to decisions of 'dictators in the Middle East'.
    "France has returned to the Middle Ages in terms of philosophy as well as theory with the approval of the national parliament. (The) French parliament has dictated Europeans what they should think and what they should discuss," he said.
    Faced with French President Nicolas Sarkozy's open hostility to Turkey's stagnant bid to join the European Union, and backed by a fast-growing economy, Ankara feels it has little to lose by picking a political fight with Paris.
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