Turkey

A television program featuring a woman in a head scarf driving a car set off a storm in Turkey.

Turkey has suspended many of its ties to France since passage of the bill concerning the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish troops during World War I.

In recent days, history has tugged at national debates across Europe, raising a question: what risks do politicians court by evoking the chimera of the past to score points in the present?

The Turkish government and press accused France of racism and said that the bill criminalizing the denial of officially recognized genocides is a breach of France’s free speech principles.

Bathonea, a harbor town dating from the second century B.C., was discovered by archaeologists on a peninsula jutting into Lake Kucukcekmece.

The bill criminalizes the denial of officially recognized genocides, including the Armenian genocide begun in 1915 — an event whose public affirmation in Turkey is treated as a crime.

Although the draft law does not mention the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, Turkey has objected to the bill.