The France 24 website reports that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted French lawmakers today (January 24, 2012) for being "racist and discriminatory" after the Senate passed a bill that would outlaw denying the 1915 massacre of Armenians in Turkey amounted to genocide. Erdogan threatened France that Turkey will retaliate any way it can.
The bill -- which French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to sign into law soon -- includes the massacre of some one and one-half million ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces in 1915.
Once the bill becomes a law, it will criminalize publicly denying that the mass killing of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces in 1915 was a deliberately organized genocide.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said the Senate vote -- which was passed by 127 to 86 -- was a day that "will be written in gold."
