Armenians welcome news that France has passed a bill to criminalise the denial of genocide, including the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, a move that has sparked a major diplomatic row between France and Turkey. Lawmakers in France's National Assembly - the lower house of parliament - voted overwhelmingly in favour of a draft law outlawing genocide denial, which will be debated next year in the Senate. The move has sparked a major diplomatic row between France and Turkey, prompting Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the law was a product of "politics based on racism, discrimination, xenophobia" and recalled the Turkish ambassador in Paris. A senior politician in the Armenian capital Yerevan said he believed that all European Union countries should follow France's lead. "When the Turkish side argues that this is against freedom of speech and etc., it does not recognise the fact that this is an EU framework decision regarding all genocide's, and all EU countries should adopt such laws," Armenian Revolutionary Federation's Kiro Manoyan said. On the streets of Yerevan, Armenians were pleased by the decision, "It is a right decision. I think it should have been done long ago. If people recognise the Holocaust, why not recognise the Armenian Genocide?" said Robert Khachatryan, an economist.

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