Turkey Recalls Paris Envoy over Genocide Law

Turkey has recalled its ambassador from Paris in protest at a decision by the French parliament to back a law banning denial of the Armenian genocide, a spokesman for the embassy said Thursday.

Tahsin Burcuoglu will leave France on Friday, while further measures in response to the vote will be announced in Turkey by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spokesman Engin Solakoglu told AFP.

The ambassador was to give a news conference at 6:00pm (1700 GMT) in Paris.

Earlier, the French National Assembly voted to back a law that would make it illegal for anyone in France to deny that the 1915 killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I amounted to genocide.

Turkey had already announced that it would withdraw its ambassador if the law was approved, and Ankara has threatened a broader raft of diplomatic and trade sanctions in the coming days.

Meanwhile, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc slammed the French bill as a "betrayal of history.”

"I condemn the French parliament, which passed this bill meaning betrayal of history and historical truth," Arinc said on his Twitter account.