Turkey has frozen relations with France, recalling its ambassador and suspending all meetings in response to French MP approval of a law that would make it a crime to deny that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks was genocide.

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, cancelled permission for French military planes to land and warships to dock in Turkey, and annulled all joint military exercises.
He said this was just the start and “gradually” but “decisively” other retaliation measures would be taken against France. He warned of heavy diplomatic “wounds” that would be “difficult to heal”.

A majority of the 50 MPs in France’s lower chamber approved the bill which would make denying any genocide – but implicitly the Armenian genocide – a criminal offence punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of €45,000 (£37,500).