Turkish president criticizes France for "genocide" bill

Turkish President Abdullah Gul criticized France for the approval of a bill that makes it a crime to deny the controversial Armenian "genocide" during the Ottoman era, saying France had made "a terrible mistake", local media reported on Wednesday. "This is a mistake, an unforgivable mistake on the part of France and the French president," Gul said in an interview with private Channel 24 on Tuesday night. The approval of bill was the result of domestic political calculations before the French presidential elections scheduled for May, said Gul, adding that the bill cast a shadow on French democracy. Moreover, Gul said that French intellectuals and writers must shoulder the fiercest criticisms. He also hopes the bill would not come to the senate floor, according to media reports. Lawmakers in the French National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, voted Thursday in favor of the bill which stipulates the denial of the so-called "Armenian genocide" in France as a crime that is punishable by a one-year imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros (58,950 U.S. dollars). The bill will be debated next year in the French Senate. On Thursday, Turkey recalls its ambassador from Paris in protest of the bill and halts "all political consultations, joint military activities and maneuvers" in response to the French approval of the bill. Turkey and Armenia have been bogged down in a dispute over the World War I-era deaths of over one million Armenians under the Ottoman rule. Armenia says the deaths occurred in "genocide," while Turkey denies the charge and insists that the Armenians were victims of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the Ottoman Empire collapsed before modern Turkey was created. Turkey rejects the term "genocide" for killings of Armenians in the World War I era, arguing the issue should be left to historians. Ankara has proposed to establish a joint commission by Turkish, Armenian and other international historians to discuss incidents in 1915. Armenia has not responded positively to the offer.