ANKARA, Oct 8: France risks being barred from economic projects in Turkey if it adopts a controversial bill on the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in remarks published on Sunday.

The draft law, to be debated in the French parliament on Thursday, calls for five years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($57,000) for anyone who denies that the World War I massacres constituted a genocide.

“The information we have is that the adoption of the bill is quite a high possibility,” Gul told the largest-selling Hurriyet newspaper.

If the bill is passed, he said, French participation in major economic projects in Turkey, including the planned construction of a nuclear plant for which the tender process is expected to soon begin, will suffer.

“We will be absolutely unable to have (such cooperation) in big tenders,” Gul said, adding that he had “openly” warned his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy about the repercussions of the bill.

In remarks to the Yeni Safak newspaper, Gul said: “The government’s reaction and the general reaction of the public will be inevitable if the developments continue as they are.... The French will lose Turkey.”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also furious. “This is an issue between Turkey and Armenia. It is none of France’s business,” he said late on Saturday in Istanbul, quoted by Anatolia news agency.—AFP