A prominent Turkish deputy submitted to parliament Wednesday a draft bill recognizing as genocide the French massacres during Algeria's war of independence, in retaliation to a French bill that the Ottomans committed genocide against Armenians, reported AFP.
The bill, the second such draft in as many days, was submitted by Bulent Akarcali from the coalition's center-right Motherland Party (ANAP), a parliamentary source told AFP.
On Tuesday, 42 parliamentary deputies from Turkey's main opposition pro-Islamic Virtue Party submitted to parliament a similar draft as a tit-for-tat measure, in retaliation for the French move last week, said the agency.
Akarcali's text stated that, "The Turkish parliament recognizes and condemns the genocide France committed in Algeria between 1954 and 1962, its cruelty in Vietnam and its contributions to the genocide in Rwanda," AFP cited Anatolia news agency as saying.
Akarcali, an influential member of the parliament's foreign affairs commission, told Anatolia that the aim of the bill was "to help France, its government, assembly and senate, which have failed to face their own past."
The French parliament's adoption last Thursday of a bill recognizing as genocide the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire triggered a storm of outrage in Turkey.
In a first concrete counter-move against France, Turkey scrapped Tuesday a spy satellite contract with French firm Alcatel and warned of more reprisals, reported the Middle East News Line (MENL).
"We have cancelled the tender, in which a preliminary contract has been signed with French company Alcatel," Turkish defense minister, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, was quoted by the news service as saying.
Cakmakoglu said the Turkish government will also exclude the Paris-based Giat Industries from a multi-billion project to co-produce 1,000 main battle tanks for the Turkish army, added MENL -- Albawaba.com
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