Sweden to recognize Armenian genocide

[Yervant1]

Sweden to recognize Armenian genocide

Published: 11 Mar 10 10:41 CET

Updated: 11 Mar 10 18:19 CET

Online: http://www.thelocal.se/25468/20100311/

 

Dictionary tool Double click on a word to get a translation

 

The Swedish parliament voted on Thursday in favour of a motion to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide.

 

 

 

 

Though the motion had the backing of members of five of the seven Swedish parliamentary parties, the vote's outcome was uncertain to the last as the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs had recommended its rejection.

 

But with several centre-right politicians ignoring the recommendation and choosing to vote with the opposition, the motion was eventually passed by a single vote.

 

Speaking to The Local prior to the vote, Left Party foreign policy spokesperson Hans Linde expressed his view that the time had come for Sweden to take a stand on the issue.

 

"Firstly, to hinder any repeat and to learn from history. Secondly, to encourage the development of democracy in Turkey - which includes dealing with their own history. Thirdly, to redress the wrongs committed against the victims and their descendants," Linde said.

 

The foreign affairs committee, in its comments on the motion, had argued for an open debate on the issue. It also stated that the persecution of the Armenians and other ethnic groups in 1915 would have constituted genocide according to the definition adopted by the United Nations in its 1948 genocide convention if it "had it been in force at the time."

 

But the committee stated that it does not consider it parliament's role to rule on human rights issues and that this should instead be addressed by "open research, open access to facts, and free debate."

 

Sweden's Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt agreed with the committee's position in comments on his blog on Thursday. Under the heading "Don't politicize history," Bildt wrote:

 

"A politicizing of history in this way risks undermining ongoing reconciliation processes, plays into the hands of those opposing normality in Armenia and reform in Turkey... and creating new tension in Swedish society."

 

The committee concluded in its comments that the Turkish government has in recent years made some movement on the issue, with conferences arranged on the subject as well as broader media debate.

 

The Swedish parliament has voted on the issue before, even approving a report in 2000 recognizing the disappearance of as many as 2.5 million Armenians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Assyrians and Pontian Greeks from April 1915 as genocide. But the recognition was later withdrawn "on a technicality", Hans Linde told The Local.

 

"The parliament also voted against recognition (by 245 to 37) in 2008. The difference this time is that the Social Democrats have changed their position," he said.

 

Carl Bildt claimed in his statement that the Social Democrat parliamentary group was forced to change standpoint on the issue as a result of a party congress vote, arguing that there are "several that feel deep unease over this."

 

According to Sweden's Living History Forum, most researchers are now in agreement that the massacres constituted genocide according to the accepted 1948 UN definition. The exception to this is Turkish researchers. The Turkish government has never recognized the events as a genocide and it is illegal in Turkey to claim that it occurred.

 

The Living History Forum is a Swedish public authority which works with issues on tolerance, democracy and human rights from both a national and international perspective.

 

The Local has made attempts to contact the foreign policy spokespersons at the Centre and Liberal (Folkpartiet) parties for a comment.

 

 

Peter Vinthagen Simpson

[gamavor]

Too little, too late. I really don't know why they are doing this, since Swedes were the most ardent deniers. Even if they knock on my door to apologize I would slam the door in their pointy noses.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: SECOND BREATH

By Ivan Gharibyan

 

news.am

March 10 2010

Armenia

 

On the threshold of the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

in Ottoman Turkey, official Ankara is receiving more and more new

signals that the process of international recognition of the Armenian

Genocide is going on.

 

No sooner had Turkey digested the approval of an Armenian Genocide

resolution by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs than it

received bad news from Spain and Sweden. Recently the Parliament of

Catalonia unanimously recognized the Armenian Genocide, which may

cause the Parliament of Spain to approve a similar decision as well.

 

The official statements that it is only the position of Catalonia

are not so important. Of importance is that the process got under way.

 

Swedish political parties intend to hold a hearing of the issue.

 

Everything suggests the following: no matter how hard Turkey tries to

blackmail the international community by threatening to thwart the

Armenia-Turkey normalization process should any country define the

1915 events as genocide, the process is going on. This fact can easily

be explained, but Ankara is unwilling to understand elementary things.

 

No doubt, Turkey's present problems are the result of its own policy.

 

Kid-glove Turkish diplomacy is doing its best to link the international

recognition of the Armenian Genocide to the Armenian-Turkish

reconciliation - two processes that have nothing in common. The

Turkish authorities' policy has for many years been "fed" by different

U.S. administrations, which have repeatedly prevented the U.S. Congress

from approving relevant resolutions. At present, the U.S. Secretary

of State, who has overtly disowned her own position and stood up for

Ankara, is trying to frighten everyone with a possible failure of the

Armenian-Turkish normalization process. Washington even pretends to

be unaware of the detrimental effects of its position and attempts

to anticipate the development of Armenian-Turkish dialogue.

 

The United States is supposed to realize that Turkey is responsible

for the present situation in the region, as it interfered in the

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and imposed a blockade on Armenia. The U.S.

 

should also be aware that making Turkey realize the need to stop

cashing in on the Genocide denial policy would enable Armenia and

Turkey to establish normal relations in the shortest space of time.

 

But the United States continues supporting Turkey's policy thereby

torpedoing the Armenian-Turkish normalization process, while it claims

it is strongly for a success in this process.

 

The latest developments have shown this, as well as Armenia's new

foreign policy after Serzh Sargsyan was elected president, has not

been very detrimental to the process of international recognition

of the Armenian Genocide. In any case, although a number of foreign

newspapers published articles about the "soccer diplomacy's" negative

effects on the process, it remains topical, and evidence thereof is

the latest decision by the Parliament of Catalonia and, most likely,

a positive result of hearings at the Swedish Parliament.

 

Turkey, in turn, has to either put up with the inevitability of

international recognition of the Armenian Genocide or the country's

all attempts to reform its society and turn into a democratic state

will be sacrificed to its own stereotyped thinking.

[Yervant1]

Too little, too late. I really don't know why they are doing this, since Swedes were the most ardent deniers. Even if they knock on my door to apologize I would slam the door in their pointy noses.

I believe there is a shift in international politics towards the AG, and countries are doing their best not to be the last one to accept it. Turkey's blatant lies can't be ignored anymore.

I have a feeling that US will be the last to do so. Shame on them.

[Yervant1]

Turkey recalls ambassador from Sweden over Armenian genocide vote

 

 

22:0611/03/2010

Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Sweden for consultations after the Swedish parliament approved a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, local media reported.

 

Turkey has also canceled a scheduled visit of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Scandinavian country.

 

Ankara last week recalled its ambassador to the United States for consultations after the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted in support of a resolution condemning as genocide the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Turks during World War I.

 

 

 

ANKARA, March 11 (RIA Novosti)

[Yervant1]

Pretty soon Turkey will have no ambassadors left in the world.

[Yervant1]

Sweden labels mass killing of Armenians genocide

 

By KARL RITTER

The Associated Press

Thursday, March 11, 2010; 2:23 PM

 

STOCKHOLM -- Sweden's parliament narrowly approved a resolution Thursday recognizing the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.

 

Swedish news agency TT said Turkey recalled its ambassador from Sweden to protest the surprise decision, which was taken in a 131-130 vote in the 349-seat assembly. Eighty-eight lawmakers were absent during the vote.

 

"After 95 years it is time for people who have suffered so long to obtain redress," said Gulan Avci, a Liberal Party lawmaker who broke with her party's line and voted to recognize the Armenian genocide. Avci is a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey.

 

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

 

The governing center-right coalition opposed the measure but it passed because a handful of center-right lawmakers sided with the left-leaning opposition, which had proposed the resolution.

 

In the U.S., a congressional committee approved a similar resolution last week in a 23-22 vote that would send the measure to the full House of Representatives, if the leadership decided to bring it up. Minutes after the vote, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to the U.S.

 

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said he regretted the Parliament's decision, saying it "will unfortunately not have a positive effect on the ongoing normalization process between Turkey and Armenia."

 

Turkish Ambassador to Sweden Zergun Koroturk told TT she had received instructions to go back to Turkey immediately after the vote.

 

"It's logical," she was quoted as saying.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Pretty soon Turkey will have no ambassadors left in the world.

 

 

L L

[Yervant1]

Politics - Published Thursday, 11 March 2010 20:35 | Author: AFP / The Swedish Wire

Sweden calls mass killing of Armenians genocide

 

 

The Swedish parliament labels, against the advice of the government, the massacres of Armenians during World War I as genocide.

RELATED NEWS:

• Swedish court allows extradition of ex neo-Nazi

 

A resolution, which passed by one vote, "signifies that Sweden recognises the 1915 genocide of Armenians" and other ethnic groups during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

 

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt immediately announced that the position of his government, which supports Turkey's entry into the European Union, "remains unchanged".

 

The adoption of the resolution came as a surprise after four members of the conservative majority rebelled to support the opposition resolution.

 

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed during World War I by their Ottoman rulers in a planned campaign of extermination as the empire was falling apart, a stance that is supported by several other countries.

 

Turkey categorically rejects the genocide label.

 

It argues that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks were killed in civil strife when Armenians rose up for independence and sided with invading Russian forces.

 

A US Congress panel branded the World War I massacre of Armenians as genocide earlier this month, sparking a diplomatic row with Turkey, which recalled its ambassador from Washington.

 

Last Updated (Thursday, 11 March 2010 20:40)

[Yervant1]

Turkey recalls envoy to Sweden over Armenia vote

Ibon Villelabeitia

ANKARA

Thu Mar 11, 2010 3:09pm ESTANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey recalled its ambassador to Sweden on Thursday and canceled an upcoming summit between the countries after the Swedish parliament branded the World War One killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces genocide.

 

World

 

The move comes only a week after Ankara called home its ambassador to the United States because a U.S. congressional committee approved a similar resolution.

 

European Union member Sweden has been one of the strongest supporters of Ankara's bid to join the bloc, while the United States is generally considered a strong western ally of the NATO-member Turkey.

 

The issue of the Armenian massacres is deeply sensitive in Turkey, which accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks but vehemently denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it amounted to genocide -- a term employed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments.

 

"We strongly condemn this resolution, which is made for political calculations," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement, referring to the Swedish parliament vote.

 

"It does not correspond to the close friendship of our two nations. We are recalling our ambassador for consultations," Erdogan said, adding that he was cancelling a Turkey-Sweden summit scheduled for March 17.

 

The Swedish resolution passed by an extremely narrow margin, with 131 parliamentarians voting in favor and 130 against. Another 88 members of parliament were absent.

 

The measure was opposed by Sweden's center-right coalition government, but three of their parliamentarians voted in favor of the motion, helping the opposition get it through.

 

"Parliament said yes to a multi-party motion which called for Sweden to recognize the 1915 genocide of Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks," read a statement on the parliament's website.

 

"DRASTIC EFFECTS" ON RELATIONS

 

Zergun Koruturk, Turkey's ambassador to Sweden, told Swedish television program Aktuellt that the vote would have "drastic effects" on bilateral relations which were unlikely to be overcome in a short time.

 

"I am very disappointed," Koruturk said. "Unfortunately, parliamentarians were thinking that they were rather historians than parliamentarians, and it's very, very unfortunate."

 

A Turkish government source, however, told Reuters that Koruturk would probably return to Sweden soon.

 

"We know the Swedish government has been very active in trying to stop this resolution," the source said.

 

In contrast, Turkey has signaled that its ambassador to the United States will not return until it has clear picture of the fate of the non-binding congressional resolution, which could take weeks.

 

The administration of President Barack Obama has vowed to stop the resolution from going further in Congress in a bid to limit the diplomatic fallout. Turkey is crucial to U.S. interests in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

[MosJan]

ch@gitem uraxanam te latsem

[Yervant1]

ch@gitem uraxanam te latsem

Urakhatsir!

The AG wall is crumling on Turkey, if a Turkophil country like Sweden accepts it there is no reason for the rest not to.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

[/url]

 

http://www.folkmordet1915.se/

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

Turkey Recalls Sweden Envoy after Parliament Recognizes Genocide

 

 

AsbarezOnline

 

STOCKHOLM—The Parliament of Sweden on Thursday, recognized the Armenian Genocide after a long debate with a vote of 131 to 130. This prompted Turkey to recall is ambassador to Sweden, reported Armenian National Committee of Sweden chairwoman Suzanne Khardalian.

 

“I have been instructed to go back to Turkey,” said Zergun Koruturk, Turkey’s ambassador to Sweden. “It is logical. I am very, very disappointed,” reported the Stockholm News.

 

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also cancelled his planned visit to Sweden.

 

“We strongly condemn this resolution, which is made for political calculations. It does not correspond to the close friendship of our two nations. We are recalling our ambassador for consultations,” Erdogan said in a statement on his website.

 

The decision comes just one week after the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to adopt the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.252), by a vote of 23-22 – despite last minute opposition from the Obama Administration and over intense lobbying by the Turkish Government. A similar measure has been introduced in the U.S. Senate, S.Res.316.

 

“Twice in just one week, we have seen legislative bodies – the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States and the full Parliament in Sweden – take a strong stand against Turkey’s threats against an honest affirmation of the Armenian Genocide,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “We congratulate the Swedish Parliamentarians – particularly those who defied party politics and foreign intimidation – to send a clear message that genocide must be condemned whenever and wherever it occurs.”

 

The resolution mandates Sweden to officially describe the large-scale murders of Armenians and other ethnic groups in Turkey in the early years of the last century as genocide.

 

The motion was supported by members of five of the seven Swedish parliamentary parties including the Left Party, whose foreign policy spokesperson Hans Linde told The Local newspaper on Thursday that the time had come for Sweden to take a stand on the issue.

 

The governing center-right coalition opposed the measure, but it passed because a handful of center-right lawmakers sided with the left-leaning opposition, which had proposed the resolution.

 

“First, to learn from history and stop it from repeating and second, to encourage the development of democracy in Turkey, which includes dealing with its own history. The third reason is to redress the wrongs committed against the victims and their relatives,” added Linde.

 

The committee in its comments on the motion argued for an open debate on the issue. It also stated that the persecution of the Armenians and other ethnic groups in 1915 would have constituted genocide according to the definition adopted by the United Nations in its 1948 genocide convention if it “had it been in force at the time.”

 

The resolution adopted today (by 131 for, 130 against) has previously been refused by the Swedish Parliament. The change can be attributed to a change of policy by the Social Democrats, who at their last party Congress, October 30, 2009, adopted a policy of recognizing the genocide carried out against the Armenians, Assyrian/Chaldeans, Pontic Greeks and Roma and others during 1914-1918 in the then Ottoman Empire. The Swedish Christian Social Democrats, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Social Democrat party members of Assyrian origin played important roles in obtaining this policy change.

 

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

The Armenian Weekly

 

 

Leylekian: Armenian Genocide Denial: The Turkish Vietnam

By: ContributorBy Laurent Leylekian

 

Once again, Turkish diplomacy is facing a dead-end. Once again, they thought they could succeed by throwing the Armenian Genocide into oblivion with the notorious protocols process. But their own inconsistency and lack of sincerity prevented them from blocking—through the final ratification of these protocols—the course of genocide recognition and the issue of what Turkish-occupied Western Armenian territories.

 

Thus, once again, platoons of Turkish diplomats will have to go to Washington, D.C., Stockholm, Switzerland, or elsewhere to try to prevent new resolutions, new momentum, new TV broadcasts, or any kind of new genocide-related initiative somewhere in the world.

 

Turkey is sending its massive PR artillery with the same lack of discernment with which the U.S. used its B52s in Vietnam. Through huge napalm-like injections of money, through nauseous orange agent-like corporate lobbying, through special operations and despicable briberies, they have generally succeeded in temporarily putting out the fire. But as soon as a blaze is supposed to be cooled down, another one appears somewhere else. Italic text is (of course) the lyrics of “The End”–The Doors.

 

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end

 

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I’ll never look into your eyes…again

 

And the brave Turkish diplomats are more and more in despair on the diplomatic front. Year after year, young inexperienced envoys are sent by Turkey to the front—a front of disenchantment Turkey has created for itself—to fight for a cause they don’t share nor care about. They sometimes win certain rearguard battles with the help of their superior diplomatic and political equipment. But it is becoming harder and harder for them to win the hearts and minds of the people they intend to free from “genocide allegations.”

 

Can you picture what will be

So limitless and free

Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand

In a…desperate land

 

Lost in a Roman…wilderness of pain

And all the children are insane

All the children are insane

Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

 

And increasingly, they can see the contempt in their interlocutors’ eyes. And more and more often, Papa Erdogan has to be sent here or there, as a Bell “Huey” helicopter, to save doomed squadrons of private Mehmets from ambush. And actually, Huey Erdogan often succeeds but it doesn’t change the fact that those Turkish commandos who are supposed to bear the denial gospel are less convinced than the ones they are supposed to convince.

 

And they bitterly realize that without any money, without uniform, without counting on blackmail, but with sincere commitment and with the incomparable weight of Truth and Morality—like a rice bowl they are fed daily—the Hay-Minh from Armenia and the Hay-Congs from the Armenian Diaspora are far more credible. That their special operations trying to split the Western Hay-Congs from the Eastern Hay-Minh is totally failing.

 

There’s danger on the edge of town

Ride the King’s highway, baby

Weird scenes inside the gold mine

Ride the highway west, baby

 

Ride the snake, ride the snake

To the lake, the ancient lake, baby

The snake is long, seven miles

Ride the snake…he’s old, and his skin is cold

 

And some young Turkish citizens who were supposed to be “good patriots” are now wondering why they have to support hatred ideologies. Why they have to affirm with such suspicious insistence that they are “truly Turks” and hate Armenians. Why they have to use the word “Agri” instead of “Ararat.” Why some of their old grand-aunts sometimes seem so sad and prudishly look away when Armenians are mentioned. And why they start feeling some sympathy for Hrant Dink, for Armenians, for Assyrians, for Alevis.

 

The west is the best

The west is the best

Get here, and we’ll do the rest

 

The blue bus is callin’ us

The blue bus is callin’ us

Driver, where you taken’ us

And polls are now showing that more and more Turkish citizens are fed up with this insane denial policy and would like their country to be normal, to be democratic, to be open, to be hate-less, to be Susurluk and Kizil Elma and Ergenekon and Bozkurt-less, while their political leaders keep on burning millions of dollars. But now, even some of these leaders are wretchedly looking for unlikely B-plans. Today, after so many years of useless denial, they can’t confess that their state ideology is based on heinous lies.

 

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on

 

He took a face from the ancient gallery

And he walked on down the hall

He went into the room where his sister lived, and…then he

Paid a visit to his brother, and then he

He walked on down the hall, and

And he came to a door…and he looked inside

Father, yes son, I want to kill you

Mother…I want to…f*** you

 

C’mon baby, take a chance with us

C’mon baby, take a chance with us

C’mon baby, take a chance with us

And meet me at the back of the blue bus

Doin’ a blue rock

On a blue bus

Doin’ a blue rock

C’mon, yeah

 

And the mask of respectability is now falling apart. Turkey’s leaders still try to appear as honest brokers in the Caucasus, in the Middle East, with Iran. But with their own rogue reputation, with their country’s poor record, and with their inability to put an end to the cycle of violence and impunity, they are simply failing. They cannot even appear as honest brokers for their own Turkish society, a society that is increasingly shaken by riots, violence, and rumors of plots, of conspiracies, of “balyoz” plans.

 

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill

 

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end

 

And the time is probably not so far away when, after countless Hué, Khe Sanh, and Tet offensives, ultimately Turkish “Hueys” will have to evacuate their left-behind credibility from the rooftops of ideological embassies—surrounded by Hay-Congs, Hay-Minhs, and allied genocide recognitions, motions, calls, demonstrations, and sittings—to carriers overcrowded with genocide deniers, retired ambassadors, crooks and crooked lobbyists, losers, and wheeler-dealers.

 

It hurts to set you free

But you’ll never follow me

The end of laughter and soft lies

The end of nights we tried to die

 

This is the end

 

And the time is probably not so far either, when Turkey will collapse as did other people’s prison houses, under the unbearable weight of its own contradictions between what it ought to be and what it is, under the intolerable curse of hate against anyone and everyone, against others and itself, under the insupportable actuality of a genocide and of its denial. And this will be the end.

 

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Abdullah Gul: Turkey not attach importance to Swedish Parliament’s decision

 

12.03.2010 /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish President Abdullah Gul made a statement regarding the approval of the Armenian Genocide resolution by the Swedish Parliament. Gul, in particular, said: "We know very well how to such decisions are made. We do not attach special significance to them," he said.

 

According to Gul the decision was made not by historians. "If you ask the personal opinions of each who voted in favor, they are will not utter even three words. Actions and decisions of these people are motivated by very unimportant reasons. We don’ need to attach too much importance to all this. We should not exaggerate the significance of the decisions, which do not cause in us a sense of respect,”the Turkish president Gul said, TRT-Russian reported.

 

 

[Fadix2]

Too little, too late. I really don't know why they are doing this, since Swedes were the most ardent deniers. Even if they knock on my door to apologize I would slam the door in their pointy noses.

 

I think the Brits are.

[Zartonk]

Swedish MPs of Turkish origin voted for Armenian Genocide Resolution

 

News.am

 

The discussions on the adoption of Armenian Genocide Resolution by Swedish Parliament continue in Turkey. This time fair game of Turks were Riksdag members of Turkish origin.

 

Swedish Social Democratic Party members Ibrahim Baylan and Yilmaz Kerimo, as well as Swedish MP of Kurdish origin Gulan Avci voted for the adoption of Armenian Genocide Resolution.

 

Turks are also enraged with another Parliamentarian of Turkish origin — Mehmet Kaplan. Although, the latter opposed the resolution, he did not vote against it and withdrew, thereby assisting the approval of the motion, Turkish Zaman daily reports.

 

L.A.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

TURKISH HACKERS ATTACK SWEDISH WEBSITES IN ACT OF REVENGE

 

Tert.am

 

 

Turkish hackers have attacked the websites of a series of institutes

in Sweden after its parliament narrowly (131-130) adopted a resolution

recognizing the Armenian Genocide on March 11.

 

According to Turkish daily Sabah, the hackers broke into the websites

of SICS, Santaanna, Viktoria and Interactive institutions, all of

which conduct research projects.

 

Since the passage of this Genocide bill, Turkish political and public

figures have been lashing out at Swedish authorities and legislators.

 

As a sign of protest, representatives of the Turkish Workers Party

placed a wreath in front of the Swedish Consulate in Izmir and

announced, "Led by the United States, imperialist countries wish to

divide Turkey with Genocide resolutions."

[Aratta-Kingdom]

The Local, Sweden

March 14 2010

 

 

Anti Swedish protests continue in Turkey

 

Published: 14 Mar 10 13:25 CET

 

Diplomatic efforts are underway to mend a rift between Sweden and

Turkey, caused by the Swedish parliament's decision to recognize the

mass killing of Armenians and other ethnic groups in 1915 as genocide.

 

The Swedish ambassador to Turkey, Christer Asp, said protests were

still underway on Saturday in some cities, following large

demonstrations outside the Swedish consulate in Istanbul on Friday.

 

He added that his post box was over flowing with hate mail and letters

indicating Swedish business interests have been affected by the

dispute.

 

"Some of the letters are formulated in such a way that I could not

repeat them in public. They are not threats but they're not saying

anything nice about Sweden, if you know what I mean," he told the news

agency TT.

 

Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, has condemned the parliament's vote.

 

"These kinds of decisions tend to increase tensions rather than reduce

them," he told news agency Reuters.

 

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has also assured his Turkish

counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he did not agree with the

paliament's decision - which was supported by four parliamentarians

who are members of his governing centre right coalition.

 

 

TT/Tom Sullivan

http://www.thelocal.se/25520/20100314/