Arguments have raged for decades about the Armenian deaths in 1915-16
Turkish fury at French vote on Armenian genocide law
Turkey has reacted with anger after the French Senate approved a bill making it a crime to deny genocide was committed by Ottoman Turks against Armenians during World War I.
The Turkish foreign ministry branded the decision "irresponsible" and threatened swift retaliatory measures.
Armenia says that up to 1.5 million people died in 1915-16 as the Ottoman empire split.
Turkey rejects the term genocide and says the number was much smaller.
The bill will now be sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy to be signed into law, which he is expected to do before the end of February.
Total rupture'
Correspondents say the move threatens to cause a serious rift between France and Turkey, who are Nato allies.
"France opened a black page in its history," said Volkan Bozkir, head of the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee, on Twitter.
Turkey's ambassador to France, Tahsin Burcuoglu, said the vote could cause a "total rupture" of relations between the two countries.
The foreign ministry statement hinted that the decision was influenced by looming presidential elections in France. An estimated 500,000 ethnic Armenians live in the country.
"We strongly condemn this decision which is... an example of irresponsibility," the statement said.
"We strongly condemn this decision which is... an example of irresponsibility," the statement said.
"Turkey is committed to taking all the necessary steps against this unjust disposition which reduces basic human values and public conscience to nothing."
The Turkish government argues that judging what happened in eastern Turkey in 1915-16 should be left to historians, and that the new French law will restrict freedom of speech.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to outline possible retaliatory measures against Paris in parliament on Tuesday.
France has already recognised the killings as a genocide but the new bill means anyone denying it faces a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros ($57,000).
Armenia, meanwhile, described Monday's vote - by 127 votes to 86 - as "historic".
"This day will be written in gold not only in the history of friendship between the Armenian and French peoples, but also in the annals of the history of the protection of human rights," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian.
Ankara froze ties with France after the lower house passed the bill last month.
The proposed law had been made more general - outlawing the denial of any genocide - but still failed to appease Ankara.
Last week, President Sarkozy wrote to Mr Erdogan saying the bill did not single out any country. He said France recognised the "suffering endured by the Turkish people" in the final years of the Ottoman empire.
French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called on Turkey not to overreact, saying Paris considered Ankara a "very important ally".
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President Sarkozy has sent a letter to the Turkish prime minister stating that the law is not aimed at any country, but only at addressing the past suffering of Armenians.
Ironically, events in the Middle East had started to bring France and Turkey closer together: after initially squabbling over Libya, they have both become leading supporters of the Syrian opposition.
But Turkish emotions over the Armenian issue run very high, and will certainly eclipse any co-operation they might have had over Syria.
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Q&A:
Armenian genocide dispute
The mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I remains a highly sensitive issue.
Turkey has resisted widespread calls for it to recognise the 1915-16 killings as genocide, while historians continue to argue about the events. At the time there were numerous reports of Turkish atrocities committed against the Armenians
What happened?
There is general agreement that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died when the Ottoman Turks deported them en masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian desert and elsewhere in 1915-16. They were killed or died from starvation or disease.
The total number of Armenian dead is disputed. Armenians say 1.5 million died. The Republic of Turkey estimates the total to be 300,000.
According to the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the death toll was "more than a million".
In a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2005 the IAGS said "we want to underscore that it is not just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide".
What is genocide?
Article Two of the UN Convention on Genocide of December 1948 describes genocide as carrying out acts intended "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".
Were the killings systematic?The dispute about whether it was genocide centres on the question of premeditation - the degree to which the killings were orchestrated.
Many historians, governments and the Armenian people believe that they were; but a number of scholars question this.
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term "genocide" in 1943, referred to the atrocities against Armenians as well as the Nazi massacres of Jews when describing his investigations.
Turkish officials accept that atrocities were committed but argue that there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people. Turkey says many innocent Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.
What was the political context?
The Young Turks - an officers' movement that had seized power in 1908 - launched a series of measures against Armenians as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling through military defeats in the war. The Young Turks - calling themselves the Committee of Unity and Progress (CUP) - had entered the war on Germany's side in 1914.
Turkish propaganda at the time presented the Armenians as saboteurs and a pro-Russian "fifth column".
Armenians mark the date 24 April 1915 as the start of what they regard as the genocide. That was when the Ottoman government arrested about 50 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. They were later executed.
Armenians in the Ottoman army were disarmed and killed. Armenian property was confiscated.
Was anyone held to account?
Several senior Ottoman officials were put on trial in Turkey in 1919-20 in connection with the atrocities. A local governor, Mehmed Kemal, was found guilty and hanged for the mass killing of Armenians in the central Anatolian district of Yozgat. The Young Turks' top triumvirate - the "Three Pashas" - had already fled abroad. They were sentenced to death in absentia.
Historians have questioned the judicial procedures at these trials, the quality of the evidence presented and the degree to which the Turkish authorities may have wished to appease the victorious Allies.
Who recognises it as genocide and who does not?Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay are among more than 20 countries which have formally recognised genocide against the Armenians.
The European Parliament and the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities have also done so.
The UK, US and Israel are among those that use different terminology to describe the events.
In 2006, Turkey condemned a French parliamentary vote which would make it a crime to deny that Armenians had suffered genocide. The bill did not become law - but Turkey suspended military ties.
In December 2011 some MPs in France's ruling centre-right party, the UMP, revived the bill, despite Turkish government outrage. It was approved by the upper house, the Senate, on 23 January 2012 and only needs to be signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to become law.
Under the bill, those publicly denying genocide would face a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (£29,000; $58,000).
Before the Senate vote, Turkey froze political visits and joint military projects in retaliation, and afterwards described the decision as "irresponsible".
In March 2010, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Washington after a US congressional committee narrowly approved a resolution branding the killings as "genocide". The House Foreign Affairs Committee endorsed it, despite the objections of the White House. Barack Obama's administration has called for the resolution not to be "acted upon" by the full Congress.
What is the political impact of the row?
The killings are regarded as the seminal event of modern Armenian history, binding the diaspora together.
Armenians are one of the world's most dispersed peoples.
In Turkey, public debate on the issue has been stifled.
Article 301 of the penal code, on "insulting Turkishness", has been used to prosecute prominent writers who highlight the mass killings of Armenians. Among them were Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink, who was later shot dead in January 2007. A teenage ultra-nationalist, Ogun Samast, was jailed for nearly 23 years in July 2011 for murdering Dink.
The European Union has said Turkish acceptance of the Armenian genocide is not a condition for Turkey's entry into the bloc.
Are Armenia-Turkey relations still frosty?After decades of hostility there has been a slight thaw. Turkey and Armenia signed a deal in October 2009 to establish diplomatic relations and open their border.
But the deal is yet to be ratified by either parliament, and some in Ankara accuse Armenia of trying to alter the terms of the deal.
A complicating factor is mutual suspicion over the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkey backs Azerbaijan in the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory inside Azerbaijan held by ethnic Armenians since a war in the 1990s.
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