TURKEY HAS CALLED OFF ITS AMBASSADOR TO SWEDEN AND PRIME MINISTER HAS CANCELLED HIS VISIT TO SWEDEN

ITAR-TASS
March 12 2010
Russia

ANKARA, March 11 (Itar-Tass) – Turkey has called off its ambassador
to Sweden and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cancelled a
previously planned visit to Sweden.

The measures came as a reaction to the Swedish parliament’s decision
earlier in the day to recognize the genocide of ethnic Armenians,
Assyrians and Pontic Greeks in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

The office of the Prime Minister said in a special statement Turkey
condemns the Swedish resolution. The Turkish-Swedish business forum
and the Prime Minister’s visit to Stockholm are henceforth cancelled,
it said.

The statement says the ambassador has been called off for
consultations.

It accuses the Swedish MPs of a political calculus behind their
resolution, saying it has been necessitated by political reasons and
especially by the elections due in Sweden in September.

The Swedish parliament’s move stands in controversy with the relations
of friendship and close cooperation existing between the two countries
and their peoples, the statement says.

The resolution on genocide was put up for voting in Swedish parliament,
the Rigksdag, Thursday morning and its discussion continued until
almost the end of the workday.

The draft was submitted by opposition forces – the Left Party, the
Green Party, the Social Democratic Workers’ Party and several MPs
from the Liberal People’s Party and the Christian Democratic Party.

The resolution was endorsed by a slight majority of votes. It
recognizes the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, 250,000 to
500,000 Assyrians and about 350,000 Pontic Greeks in the last phase
of Turkey’s imperial history.

The opponents of recognition of the genocide came up with explanations
for their position.

One of them, Gustav Blix of the Moderate Coalition Party, told Radio
Sweden that it is not politicians that should write history.

He indicated that decisions on such knotty issues should be taken by
international law agencies.

Blix fears the recognition of genocide may hamper the incipient
process of rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey.