SWEDISH PM CALLS ERDOGAN OVER ‘GENOCIDE’ VOTE
Agence France Presse
March 14, 2010 Sunday 5:38 PM GMT
Sweden’s prime minister has called his Turkish counterpart to distance
himself from a parliament move branding the massacres of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks as genocide, Ankara said Sunday.
Sweden’s Frederik Reinfeldt called Recep Tayyip Erdogan Enhanced
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"his sadness and say that his government absolutely did not share
the decision," Erdogan’s office said in a statement.
Blaming the vote on "domestic politics," Reinfeldt said his government
was "ready to do the necessary so that this unfounded decision does
not harm bilateral relations," according to the text.
The Swedish prime minister also assured Erdogan that the parliament’s
move did not weaken Stockholm’s support of Turkey’s EU accession
ambitions.
Going against the government’s advice, the Swedish parliament voted by
a narrow margin on Thursday to recognise the "genocide of Armenians"
during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Ankara quickly recalled its ambassador and cancelled a visit by Erdogan
to Sweden after the vote, which came just days after a similar move
by a US Congressional panel.
In remarks to Sweden’s TT news agency, Reinfeldt said that he
had expressed to his Turkish counterpart "regrets following the
parliament’s decision because it politicises history."
According to the Turkish statement, Erdogan "strongly insisted on the
disappointment" felt in Turkey over the vote, while recognising that
the government was against it.
He also called for "measures to repair the situation."