France, Strasbourg, Jan. 25 / Trend, A.Maharramli /
Turkey should join the European Union, British Prime Minister believes.
"We must work to establish very close ties between Turkey and other members of the European Union. If we think about terrorism and nuclear threat in the Middle East, we will see that Turkey is closely associated with the region. We must think out the ways of living together and ensure that Muslim Turkey joins the EU", David Cameron said Wednesday at the winter session of PACE.
He noted that Turkey and the United Kingdom have been enjoying close ties for a long time. "My firm position is that these relations should be successfully continued, and I will work for this," said the prime minister.
Commenting on the recent adoption of the law criminalizing the denial of so-called "Armenian genocide" by the French Senate, Cameron said that his country also had enacted laws directed to the past, but he believes that we must live in the present.
The French Senate - Upper House of parliament adopted the bill. Some 127 senators voted in favour, while 86 were against on Jan.23.
The lower house adopted a bill criminalising the denial of the genocide on Dec.22.
Some 45 out of 577 French MPs voted with 38 voting for and seven against the adoption of the bill.
The bill demands a year's imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euro for denying the so-called genocide.
MPs from the French president's Union for Popular Movement (UMP) party proposed the bill aimed at criminalizing the dneial of the so-called genocide to the legislative committee of the National Assembly in early December.
Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that the predecessor of the Turkey - Ottoman Empire had committed the 1915 genocide against the Armenians living in Anadolu, and achieved recognition of the "Armenian Genocide" by the parliaments of several countries.