Turkey blocks planned visit of Swiss politician

The Associated Press
08/05/05 09:32 EDT

BERN, Switzerland (AP) – Turkey has blocked a planned visit of
Switzerland’s economics minister, a Swiss official said Friday,
the latest episode in a long-running diplomatic dispute between the
two governments.

The visit was formally canceled because of “schedule clashes,” said
Christophe Hans, spokesman for Economics Minister Joseph Deiss.

Hans declined to say whether the decision was affected by an argument
over Turkey’s killings of Armenians around the time of World War I,
considered by the Swiss and some other governments to have amounted
to genocide. Ankara fiercely denies that Turks committed genocide.

“We regret the decision and we hope that Mr. Deiss will have the
opportunity to go on an official visit in the future,” Hans said.

Ankara was angered last month when Swiss authorities launched an
investigation into a visiting Turkish politician, Dogu Perincek,
who said the killings weren’t genocide.

Under Switzerland’s anti-racism laws, denying genocide is a crime,
and Perincek was briefly detained after his speech.

Last month, Turkey called the Swiss ambassador to the Foreign
Ministry to protest Perincek’s detention and investigation. Speaking
to another Swiss newspaper at the weekend, Perincek reiterated his
earlier comments.

“There has never been a genocide. That is an international historic
lie,” he told SonntagsBlick.

Similar disputes have erupted in the past between Turkey and
Switzerland.

In June, a Turkish Cabinet minister postponed a visit to Switzerland
to protest an investigation of a Turkish historian who denied the
killings were genocide.

The Swiss foreign minister had been scheduled to travel to Turkey in
2003, but Turkey withdrew its invitation after the parliament of a
western Swiss canton (state) approved a motion calling the killings
a genocide.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress