TURKEY ENVOY TO RETURN TO SWEDEN DESPITE ‘GENOCIDE’ VOTE

Agence France Presse
March 24 2010

Turkey’s ambassador will return to Sweden despite a vote by parliament
in Stockholm recognising the "genocide" of Armenians in 1915, the
foreign minister said Wednesday.

Ambassador Zergun Koruturk will "again take up her job this week or
early next week at the latest", Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told
Turkish television channel CNN-Turk.

The Swedish parliament on March 11 recognised the massacres of
Armenians during World War I as genocide, immediately sparking a
diplomatic row with Turkey and prompting Ankara to call back its
ambassador.

The Swedish government had opposed the resolution.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt apologised to Ankara,
a move which his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called
"very positive".

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt also said that the position of his
government, which supports Turkey’s entry into the European Union,
"remains unchanged".

"We think it is a mistake to politicise history," Bildt wrote on
his blog.

"Unfortunately the decision of the parliament will not facilitate the
process of normalisation between Turkey and Armenia, nor the work of
a commission which should investigate the events of 1915," he added.

Davutoglu on Wednesday welcomed Stockholm’s position and called the
vote "absurd".

A US Congress panel had branded the World War I massacre of Armenians
as genocide a week before the Swedish vote, sparking a diplomatic row,
with Turkey also recalling its ambassador from Washington.

Davutoglu said he was wary of sending the Turkish ambassador back to
Washington as the two cases were different.

"The Swedes clearly apologised," he said.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed in systematic
massacres during World War I as the Ottoman Empire fell apart.

Turkey counters that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians and at
least as many Turks perished in civil strife when Armenians rose up
against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian forces.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress