VOTE COULD HURT TURKEY-ARMENIA TIES

Irish Times.com
Friday, March 12, 2010, 16:37

A resolution by the Swedish parliament branding the WW1 killing of
Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide could hurt peace efforts
between Turkey and Armenia, Turkey’s prime minister said today.

Turkey recalled its ambassador to Stockholm after the vote in the
Swedish parliament yesterday. The move came a week after Ankara called
home its envoy to the United States over the approval of a similar
resolution by a US congressional panel.

"This can hurt relations between Turkey and Armenia," prime minister
Tayyip Erdogan said during the opening of a factory near Istanbul.

Although Turkey has been quick to say that both resolutions will hurt
the chances of resolving its dispute with Armenia, steps towards a
normalisation of ties had already stalled in recent months.

Turkey and Armenia agreed last year to establish diplomatic ties
and open their border if their parliaments approved peace accords,
but the votes have not taken place and the governments have accused
each other of trying to rewrite the texts.

Ankara has demanded that ethnic Armenian forces pull back from
frontlines of the disputed mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh as a
condition for ratifying the peace deal.

Although Ankara accepts many Christian Armenians perished in killings
that began in 1915, it denies that up to 1.5 million died and that
it amounted to genocide.

The issue of the Armenian massacre is so sensitive here that Turks
seem willing to risk ties with their main allies over it.

European Union member Sweden is one of the strongest supporters of
Ankara’s bid to join the bloc, while the United States is considered
a strong ally of NATO member Turkey.