ANKARA - ''Turkey expects French executives to display a commonsensical approach on issues related to groundless Armenian claims of so-called genocide,'' Turkish MFA Spokesman Namik Tan said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a weekly news conference, Tan said, ''we have expressed our uneasiness to French authorities as regards the bill submitted to French parliament and making any rejection of the so-called Armenian genocide a crime, since it risks to damage Turkish-French relations.''
Tan said ''in discussions pertaining to their history Frenchmen say 'politicians and parliamentarians should not say anything on issues related to history, and that such issues should be assessed by historians'.''
Tan said those expressions were in line with the thesis Turkey has been defending for years. ''We cannot accept double standards and contradicting approaches on this issue,'' Tan indicated.