Turkish foreign minister faults Swiss for party leader’s detention

BBC Monitoring Service
Jul 24, 2005

Text of report in English by Turkish news agency Anatolia

ANKARA

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul expressed on Sunday [24 July]
regret about detention of Labour Party (IP) leader Dogu Perincek in
Wintherthur city of Switzerland, and said this was “unacceptable”.

Foreign Ministry officials told AA [Anatolia] correspondent that Gul
said that the stance of Swiss authorities “was incompatible with the
principle of freedom of expression, which was one of the most
important values of the modern world”.

Gul said that they would decide on further steps to be taken according
to information they received from Switzerland and their assessments.

Perincek was detained last night for saying “Armenian genocide is an
international lie” in a press conference he held in Wintherthur the
previous day. He was released after being interrogated for more than
three hours.