Epress.am News from Armenia
At a meeting in parliament Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded to statements by French President Nicolas Sarkozy during a recent trip to Armenia.
As reported by the Epress.am correspondent in Istanbul, Erdogan addressed Sarkozy directly.
“Mr. Sarkozy, you should not forget that living in France are not only 500,000 Armenians, but also 500,000 Turks. You, as president of the country, have obligations to the next generations. A president has to speak and act by thinking about his country’s future. You have little thoughts and plans with Armenians, but with Turkey, you do. Think about it,” he warned.
Recall, Sarkozy urged Turkey on Friday to recognize the First World War-era massacres of Armenians as genocide before his term ends in May 2012.
“From 1915 to 2011, it seems to be enough [time] for reflection,” Sarkozy told reporters in Yerevan on the second day of his visit to Armenia.
The French president said that if Turkey did not make this “gesture of peace” and “step towards reconciliation,” he would consider proposing the adoption of a law criminalizing denial of the killings as genocide.