Algerian opposition supports Turkey on massacre claims
The leader of Algerian opposition Ennahda Party Fateh Rebai said they support Turkey's claims of massacre of Algerian people by the French during the colonial period.
He criticized Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia who urged Turkey Saturday to stop making "political capital" out of France's killing of thousands of Algerians.
The Algerian Prime Minister urged Ankara not to speculate the issue ahead of a French Senate vote on a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to deny that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 1915-17 amounted to genocide. Earlier, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened to ‘recognize the Algerian massacres in 1945-1960.'
"I wonder why those who say these things to Turkey have no courage to speak up against France. Turkey's claims of killings in Algeria did not amount to meddling with the country's internal affairs or trying to make political capital over the blood of the Algerians," said Fateh Rebai.
"Turkey showed it stood by the Algerian people by its stance against France. We shall support Turkey until France admits to committing massacres in Algeria and officially apologizes for them," he stressed.
Rebai recalled Turkish rule in Algeria and said Algeria would have been long invaded by Spain, and its people converted into Catholicism, if the Ottomans had not been there.
