TURKISH AMBASSADOR RETURNS TO SWEDEN
Arminfo
2010-03-25 13:34:00
ArmInfo. 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 11th recognised the massacres of
Armenians and other ethnic groups 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 politicize 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.
Earlier on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister said Ankara is not
going to send its ambassador back to Washington yet.