SWISS FM LAYS WREATH AT MONUMENT TO ARMENIAN MASSACRE

Agence France Presse — English
June 12, 2006 Monday 7:42 PM GMT

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey laid a wreath on Monday
at the monument dedicated to the 1915 massacre of Armenians, which
her country recognises as genocide.

Calmy-Rey laid the wreath in the former Soviet republic’s capital
during a meeting with her Armenian counterpart, the Yerevan foreign
ministry said in a statement.

The Swiss lower house of parliament in December 2003 recognised the
massacre as genocide, angering Turkey and prompting Ankara to cancel
an official visit by the Swiss foreign minister.

When Calmy-Rey finally visited Turkey in March 2005 she called on
Ankara to undertake an in-depth investigation into the massacre.

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire,
the predecessor of modern Turkey.

Turkey categorically rejects the genocide label and argues that
300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife
when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia
and sided with Russian troops invading Ottoman soil.