Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said hosting French senators on Monday that he hopes the French law criminalizing denial of the Armenian "genocide" in Turkey passed last month would not go into effect, according to the president’s press-service.

The delegation visiting Baku is headed by Nathalie Goulet, head of the French-Azerbaijani parliamentary taskforce, as well as includes five other senators – Sylvia Goy-Chavent, Jean-Marie Bockel, Herve Maurey, Andre Reichardt and Jeanny Lorgeoux. The six MPs voted against the "genocide" bill.

President Aliyev thanked the lawmakers for taking a fair stance during the vote on the "genocide" bill. He said the passage of the law was "an initiative based on false and concocted information", which distorts history and contradicts democratic values and freedom of speech.

Goulet said the senators would do their utmost to expand France’s relations with Azerbaijan.

The law, passed on January 23 in the Senate, France's upper house of parliament, makes it illegal to deny that the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I were genocide. The bill, which allows for a potential one-year prison sentence and a fine of up to 45,000 euros for those who deny the alleged genocide, must now be signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to become law.

But a group of French senators said they had asked the constitutional council to examine the new law. The council is obliged to deliver its judgment within a month.