It is out of question for Turkey to accept an Armenian resolution at the French Parliament, says President Gul

ANKARA (A.A) - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Tuesday that it was out of question for Turkey to accept an Armenian resolution at the French Parliament that was designed to eradicate the freedom to reject unfair and baseless accusations towards Turkey and the Turkish nation. In a statement posted on the web site of the Turkish Presidency, President Gul said that he hoped France would refrain from acts that would not respect freedom of expression and block performing an objective scientific research on the incidents of 1915. Judging a country's history through a political body like the parliament is nothing but distorting history for political goals and is an act with insensitivity, Gul stressed. President Gul's comments came only two days before the French Parliament is set to vote on a resolution that criminalizes the rejection of the Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915 with a prison term of 1 year and a monetary fine of 45,000 euros. -Turkey's position on Armenian allegations- Turkey has long been facing a systematic campaign of defamation carried out by Armenian lobbying groups. The Armenian diaspora has lately increased its organized activities throughout the world for the recognition of their unfounded allegations in regard to the events of 1915 as "genocide" by national and local parliaments. Turkey is of the view that parliaments and other political institutions are not the appropriate fora to debate and pass judgments on disputed periods of history. Past events and controversial periods of history should be left to the historians for their dispassionate study and evaluation. In order to shed light on such a disputed historical issue, the Turkish Government has opened all its archives, including military records to all researchers. Furthermore, Turkey encourages historians, scholars and researchers to freely examine and discuss this historical issue in every platform. In order to have an objective and complete analysis of the Turkish-Armenian relations, the Armenian archives should also be opened and made available to the public and researchers. For reaching the truth, historians must have access to all related archives. In this respect, in 2005, Turkey has officially proposed to the Government of Armenia the establishment of a joint commission of history composed of historians and other experts from both sides to study together the events of 1915 not only in the archives of Turkey and Armenia but also in the archives of all relevant third countries and to share their findings with the public. Unfortunately, Armenia has not responded positively to this initiative, yet. Turkey's proposal is still on the table. If accepted by Armenia, Turkey's proposal for setting up a Joint Commission of History would also serve as a confidence-building measure paving the way for a dialogue towards normalization of relations between the two countries. Turkey and Armenia signed protocols in 2009 to normalize relations. Dozens of Turkish diplomats and family members as well as Turkish citizens have either been assassinated or wounded in attacks perpetrated by Armenian terrorists during the 1970s and 1980s.