Turkish PM stirs controversy within the ranks of the Algerian war veterans

The former Algerian war veteran Lakhdar Bouregaa considers the Turkish fierce reaction against the French authorities over the bill that criminalizes the Armenian genocide, was not done out of sympathy toward the Algerian people but out of historical facts.

• In one of his declarations to Echourouk, he has indicated that” the endorsement of the law by the lower chamber of the French parliament is a blow to the Algerian legislators, noting that the French MPs have passed a law that denies the Armenian genocide during the first World War, while the Algerian MPs have failed short to issue a law that retrieves the dignity of the Algerian people and their martyrs”.
• Bouregaa has vehemently criticized the Algerian parliament saying” If the French parliament is an “institution and half” since it passed a law that condemns the denial of the Armenian genocide, where does the Algerian parliament stand?”.
• He slammed the parties of the presidential alliance for hampering the moves toward the issue of bill that criminalizes the French atrocities in Algeria during the colonial period.
• For his part, the historian Mohammed Al Corso considers that the Turkish position toward this issue stems out of this country’s legitimate right to defend its historical sovereignty especially that it has never denied the atrocities perpetrated against the Armenian community.
• Al Corso has further added that criminalisation of the denial is more dangerous than the genocide itself, noting that Erdogan was right when he demanded the French authorities to acknowledge their war crimes when he summoned the French president Sarkozy to review the French historical past.