Cicek slams France for Armenian "genocide" law

Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek attended ceremonies to commemorate the 92nd anniversary of the independence of southeastern province of Kahramanmaras over the weekend. Speaking in the ceremony, Cicek defined the French law criminalizing the denial of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915 as a "rascal game." Cicek addressed France, saying, "There is not any oppression, suppression, invasion, genocide or meanness in our history. But histories of other countries consist of many of these. Our nation is capable of facing its own history, which is not shameful at all." Stating that a great many sufferings occurred in the World War I, but Armenian genocide allegations were brought to agenda on the pretext of such sufferings, Cicek said that these moves actually aimed at casting a slur. "The history of nations should not be victimized to diplomatic calculations, internal politics or greedy plans. It would be wrong to try to find out what has happened in the past with a political understanding. No matter what they do, we will not blacken our history," Cicek said.