AFP reports that Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has urged Turkey to stop using the deaths of thousands of Algerians during the colonial period at the hand of France for political capital.

Turkey has accused France of hypocrisy over a recent bill passed by the National Assembly regarding the criminalization of the denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

“An estimated 15 per cent of the Algerian population was massacred by the French from 1945 onwards," Erdogan has said. "This is a genocide."

At a Saturday press conference Ouyahia said every country has the right to defend its interests, but "nobody has the right to make the blood of Algerians their business."

Ouyahia noted that Turkey had been a member of NATO during the war in Algeria and as such had provided material support to France.