Turkey warned France on Friday, Dec 16 their political and economic relations would suffer grave consequences if the French parliament passed a draft law making it illegal to deny the Armenian Genocide.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a vocal critic of Turkey's long-standing, but slow-moving bid to join the European Union, told Turkey in October that unless it recognized the 1915 Armenian Genocide, France would consider making denial a crime.

The draft law, put forward by a deputy from Sarkozy's party, is due to go before parliament next week and proposes a one-year prison sentence and 45,000 euro fine for denying the Genocide.

"I want to state clearly that such steps will have grave consequences for future relations between Turkey and France in political, economic, cultural and all areas and the responsibility will rest with those behind this initiative," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote in a letter to Sarkozy.

"Turkish-French relations should not be held captive by the demands of third parties," Erdogan said. "This is a sensitive, serious subject."

Erdogan said common sense should come before political calculations, Reuters reported.