Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry has expressed disappointment with Thursday’s passage in the French parliament’s lower chamber of a bill criminalizing denial of the alleged genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, saying the decision "is definitely not in line with the principles of freedom of speech and expression".

"Azerbaijan is disappointed that while adopting such a draft law, the French National Assembly is turning a blind eye to the ethnic cleansing faced by hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis and their turning into displaced persons on their own soil," the ministry said in a statement. It was referring to the Azerbaijanis who were ousted from their homes during the brutal war with Armenia in the early 1990s.

Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told the press Friday that the National Assembly’s decision was unacceptable for Azerbaijan.

"If France is dealing with issues dating back 100 years, it should also state its position on the occupation of Azerbaijani territory, the Khojaly tragedy [a massacre committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis during the Karabakh war in 1992], and about a million people who became IDPs and refugees."

20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including the Nagorno Karabakh region, has been under Armenian occupation since the two South Caucasus republics signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following the Karabakh war.

Mammadyarov said the passage of the "genocide" denial bill "serves to nothing but causing problems".

"The participation of only 10 percent of the total number of deputies in the passage of this bill is undemocratic, and this cannot be considered a fair outcome of the voting," he said.

The minister did not elaborate the steps that Azerbaijan could take against France over the "genocide" bill passage.

"Passage of the draft law is currently in its first stage, so, we are following this process for now. We have to keep working and prove that this decision may complicate developments in the region."

But Mammadyarov does not expect the French co-chairmanship in the OSCE Minsk Group, which is brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, to cause major hurdles in a fair settlement of the long-standing dispute.

He reminded that the outgoing French Minsk Group co-chair Bernard Fassier admitted during his recent visit to the region that a part of Azerbaijan’s territory is occupied by Armenia.

"We deem this a stance of official Paris," Mammadyarov added.

The bill passed in the National Assembly, the lower house of France’s parliament, envisions a jail sentence of up to one year and a 45,000 euro fine for those denying that the World War I-era "genocide" of Armenians occurred. The bill will be debated next year in the Senate, the parliament’s upper chamber. If endorsed, it will be submitted to the French president for signing.

The French legislature recognized the "genocide" in January 2001.