CAIRO (IslamOnline) - Turkey reacted angrily to a French parliamentary decision to pass a law accusing Turkey of genocide against Armenians at the turn of the 20th century as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated.
Ankara reportedly said it was recalling its ambassador to France for consultations and warned of harm to commercial and political relations with Paris.
France has Europe's largest Armenian minority population, estimated at 300,000, many of whom lobbied hard for adoption of the law. Armenian crowds cheered and celebrated at the National Assembly in Paris seconds after the law was approved.
The controversial law clearly states that "France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915."
BBC Online quoted Dominic Moisi, Deputy Director of the French Institute for International Relations, as saying "The action of the French parliament will not make easier the attempt by Turkey to become a full member of the EU."
News agencies said that State Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen told a news conference the French National Assembly had "made a mistake in the face of history" in unanimously passing the bill propagated by the Armenian diaspora.
"The vote will cause great and lasting harm to relations between Turkey and France...It opens a road to a serious crisis in our relations. "
Turkey, which borders Armenia, denies any part in genocide and argues that any bloody events were part of general skirmishes in 1915. Armenian leaders say that some 1.5 million Armenians died during the last days of the empire.
The Turks say only 300,000 Armenians died during clashes, and that people on both sides perished during an Armenian revolt against the authorities.
"So-called genocide claims should be left to the objective assessments of historians. Evaluating and using a historical event for daily politics would be a great mistake,'' Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Tuesday.
The European Union Parliament passed a similar law late last year angering Ankara.
Armenians in the U.S also pressed for a similar law.
The U.S. Congress debated the law, but finally dropped the measure after warnings from U.S. President Bill Clinton that such a law would be harmful to Washington's security interests in the region.
