France and Turkey share views on Assad Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius yesterday in Paris. Speaking at a joint press conference following the meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Davutoğlu, Fabius explained that they mainly discussed the situation in Syria, while also touching on the developments in Afghanistan and the Middle East, Turkey and EU relat ...

Turkey has ended sanctions on France that were enacted after former French President Nicolas Sarkozy's attempted to pass a bill criminalizing denial of the events of 1915 as genocide, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said today. The move was based on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's orders, Davutoğlu said during an interview with private broadcaster CNNTürk.  "We can see that newly elected Pres ...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called for a "new era" in Franco-Turkish relations in a congratulatory phone call to president-elect Francois Hollande, officials said today. In the call late on Thursday, Erdoğan said he hoped "Turko-French relations will from now on be free from artificial questions currently affecting them," an official in Erdoğan's entourage said. "I am confident on the su ...

GOOD NEWS FOR TURKEY.. As well as many others in the world.. Mr. Sarkozy (luckily) has lost to Mr. Francois Hollande in presidential elections. This gentleman has unfortunately taken his place among the most unsuccessful presidents in French history due to his inappropriate attitude and politics throught his time in office. In fact he has truly scatched the minor problems between France and Turkey and made ...

French partner for Turkish corporate giant 38 percent interest in TAV Airport Holding, which operates 10 Turkish airports including Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, was purchased by the French company Aéroports de Paris Management for a total of $874 million. Aéroports de Paris Management bought 18 percent of TAV’s total shares from each of Tepe İnşaat and Akfen, paying  414 million dollars for each block of sha ...

French candidate Hollande promises to bring back 'genocide' bill French presidential frontrunner François Hollande has promised to bring back a government-backed law criminalizing denials of the 1915 events as genocide if he is elected even though the country’s Constitutional Council rejected a similar bill yesterday, Anatolia news agency reported. Hollande promised to reopen the debate in a peaceful negoti ...

Turkey welcomed on Tuesday a ruling by France's highest court overturning a law making it illegal to deny the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire a century ago was genocide. The court ruling could help defuse a potential diplomatic row between Turkey and France, but Turkish foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the cabinet will decide whether to restart economic, political and military meetings with ...

The protest of the Armenian bill has resulted in a 34.4% drop in French imports compared to the same period of the year prior. The increasing reactions have at present resulted in a monthly detriment to Sarkozy of 356 million dollars. The draft passed by the French Parliament which deems criminalizing the Armenian allegations of a so-called 'genocide' has slowly begun to result in an increasing financial bi ...

France's new law punishing denial of the Armenian claims of genocide was put on hold Tuesday after politicians opposed to the legislation demanded that its constitutionality be examined. Turkey reacted furiously last week when the Senate approved the law which threatens with jail anyone in France who denies that the 1915 killings amounted to genocide. President Nicolas Sarkozy's office brushed off angry thr ...

Reporters Without Borders in Paris urged parliamentarians to refer the bill adopted on Monday to make it a crime to deny Armenian allegations on the Ottoman era incidents of 1915 to the Constitutional Council. PARIS- A letter by Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, said that parliamentarians must demand the bill's referral to the Council, because it was against freedom of ...

Largest employers' organization in France calls French companies doing business in Turkey to urgent meeting The largest employers' organization in France, MEDEF, has called French companies doing business in Turkey to an urgent meeting on Tuesday. In a statement made to the French News Agency, a MEDEF representative said that an urgent meeting has been scheduled for French companies doing business in Turkey ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Davutoğlu has warned France on the ‘Armenian Bill”, while France calls on Turkey for restraint. Despite all the warnings from Ankara, protests from Turks and criticism from French intellectuals, the bill which foresees criminalizing the denial of the Armenian 'genocide' was passed yesterday by the French Senate with 127 votes in favor and 86 votes against. SECOND SANCTION PACKET SIT ...

France’s Constitutional Commission has declared that a bill that would criminalize denials of the 1915 events as genocide is contrary to the constitution, daily Hürriyet reported today. Twenty-three members voted for the change that requires the bill to be reconsidered before putting it to a Senate vote scheduled for Jan. 23. Nine voted against the change, while eight chose to abstain. The commission's nega ...

The Turkish Central Bank could withdraw its nearly 23 billion euros of reserves from France after the EU member’s recent move to fine any denial of an Armenian ‘genocide’ in 1915, economists tell the Daily News. However, such a sharp move could risk Turkey’s EU bid, they add. Turkey’s Central Bank might shift nearly 30 billion Turkish Liras of investment in French bonds to other European powerhouses as part ...

Turkey has established a series of sanctions to be implemented in stages against France dependent on developments unraveling. If France continues to pursue passing the contentious bill than the Airbus tender may be put on hold. Sarkozy may also be subjected to air field limitations. Details of the sanctions Turkey is considering implementing on France, whose parliament passed a bill making denying the 'so-c ...

Turkey renews its rhetoric that it applied within its action plan against Armenian initiatives on the incidents of 1915. Ankara constitutes its action plan on raising awareness in the international arena on overall incidents of the World War I-era in a way that includes what all Ottoman people suffered. Turkey would change its “concept of diaspora,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said. Turkish officials w ...

France's Sarkozy urges mutual respect of views with TurkeyFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy Friday urged the mutual respect of views between his country and Turkey amid a row over France's criminalisation of the denial of the Armenian genocide. "I respect the views of our Turkish friends -- it's a great country, a great civilisation -- and they must respect ours," Sarkozy said in Prague where he is attending ...

French Parliament has passed a bill to penalize the denial of the (so-said) Armenian “genocide”, today. Paris had officially recognized the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 as genocide, earlier. Reverting to the session at the parliament, A french deputy has commented saying "France challenged many obstacles to live this day and it could be marked as a historic human rights d ...

Turkey could cease chemical imports -- expected to reach $2 billion this year -- from France amid an ongoing political dispute with that country, Murat Akyuz, head of the Turkish Chemical Sector Platform (KSP), told Today's Zaman on Monday in Istanbul, adding that the French side had confused political issues with bilateral trade. Akyuz was speaking at a press meeting where he evaluated the latest developme ...

A country which always refers to "DEMOCRACY", liberty and especially "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" is upto playing dirty games against Turkey only to win a couple of hundred thousand Armeninan votes by trying to pass a bill which is supposed to punish anybody to deny so-said Armenian genocide (claimed to have been carried out by the Turkish state in the past). It is absolutely NONSENSE and out of logic to even make a ...

Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee meets with senior French politicians to drum up opposition against a French bill crimalizing ‘genocide’ denial. AA photoA Turkish parliamentary delegation started a three-day campaign in Paris yesterday to halt a French motion criminalizing the denial of Armenian genocide claims, warning that the bill’s passage would seriously damage bilateral ties. Volkan Bo ...

Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan has said that a draft law criminalizing rejection of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915 would seriously harm GENEVA- Caglayan, who is currently in Geneva, told AA correspondent on Friday that the bill was brought up in France ahead of presidential election set to be held in 2012. It was a tactic by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to impress Fren ...

A Turkish parliamentarian delegation will pay a two-day visit to Paris from Dec. 19 to 20 to warn the French Parliament of serious damage to bilateral ties if it passes a bill that would criminalize denial of the Armenian "genocide." Led by Volkan Bozkir, the head of Parliament's foreign affairs commission, the delegation will include Kasim Gulpinar of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Osman Koruturk ...