SwissInfo
June 10 2005

Armenian question overshadows Turkish visit

photo: Don’t mention Armenia: Joseph Deiss with Turkish prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last year (Keystone)

A delegation of Turkish parliamentarians arrives in Switzerland on
Monday, amid fresh controversy over the killing of Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire.

Newspaper reports in Turkey on Friday said planned visits by ministers
from both countries had been cancelled, in response to the launch of a
criminal investigation against a Turkish historian.

Turkish newspapers, Radikal and Milliyet, reported that the Turkish
trade minister, Kürsad Tüzmen, had cancelled a visit to Zurich,
planned for June 22-24.

Tüzmen had been due to address the Swiss-Turkish Business Council,
which said he had postponed his visit a month ago. He was also due to
meet the economics minister, Joseph Deiss.

Tüzmen was refusing to come to Switzerland for reasons of solidarity
with the historian in question, Yusuf Halacoglu, the papers said.
Radikal quoted Tüzmen as saying that Halacoglu was a “good friend”.

Last month, the cantonal prosecutor’s office in Winterthur launched a
criminal investigation against Halacoglu for violating anti-racism
laws. The prosecutor’s office says the Turkish historian played down
the massacre of Armenians in 1915-18 in a speech in May 2004.

According to Radikal and Milliyet, Deiss has cancelled a reciprocal
visit to Turkey, scheduled for September. There has been no
confirmation from the Swiss economics ministry, but spokesman Manuel
Sager said the Turkish side had indicated that there were “scheduling
problems” with the visit.

However, the press attaché at the Turkish embassy in Bern, Sibel Gal,
said Deiss’s visit was still expected to take place in the autumn.

Controversy

The latest controversy comes as the foreign affairs committee of the
Turkish Grand National Assembly begins a weeklong visit to Switzerland
on Monday. The trip is a reciprocal visit: a Swiss delegation visited
Ankara last year.

The Turks are due to meet Swiss parliamentarians, as well as Deiss and
the Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey.

Turkey and Switzerland have been at odds over the Armenian question
since 2003, when the Vaud cantonal parliament voted to recognise the
killings as genocide. The House of Representatives followed suit three
months later.

Ankara withdrew an invitation to Calmy-Rey after the vote in Vaud, but
she visited the country last March once tensions had eased.

Turkey strongly denies the charge of genocide, putting the emphasis on
killings by both sides.

“Bitter taste”

Speaking to swissinfo earlier in the week, before the latest
controversy erupted, the Turkish ambassador to Bern, Alev Kiliç,
admitted that the Armenian situation “has left a bitter taste at a
certain point in our relations”.

“We would like to clear this once and for all by establishing a
commission of historians from both sides and opening all files and
archives.”

Kiliç added the Swiss had shown interest in such a commission during
Calmy-Rey’s visit in March, and that now it was up to the Armenians to
make their position clear.

“Of course the proposal has also been made to the Armenian government
and we can’t establish anything without their agreement. We have still
not received a positive reply.”