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Turkey cancels summit with Sweden over Armenian genocide resolution

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  • Turkey cancels summit with Sweden over Armenian genocide resolution

    Christian Science Monitor
    March 12 2010


    Turkey cancels summit with Sweden over Armenian genocide resolution

    A week after a US congressional committee passed an Armenian genocide
    resolution, Sweden has followed suit. Swedish trade with Turkey has
    increased significantly in recent years.

    By Scott Peterson Staff writer / March 12, 2010

    Anger over events of nearly a century ago has prompted Turkey to
    cancel a top-level summit in Sweden next week, in the aftermath of a
    decision by the Swedish Parliament to declare the mass deaths of
    Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915 a genocide.

    `We strongly condemn this resolution, which is made for political
    calculations,' said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who canceled
    his visit to Stockholm next Wednesday for a Sweden-Turkey summit. `It
    does not correspond to the close friendship of our two nations.'

    `Those who think that historical facts and Turkey's views of its own
    past will change with the decisions made on the basis of political
    interests of foreign parliaments are seriously deluded,' he said.

    US, Swedish resolutions passed by one vote
    Turkey recalled its ambassador from Stockholm on Thursday, just a week
    after recalling its envoy from Washington for consultations after the
    US House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a similar non-binding
    resolution.

    Turkey disputes the term genocide for the deaths of up to 1.5 million
    Christian Armenians, and says both Armenians and Turks died during
    World War I fighting as the Ottoman Empire began to collapse.

    The resolutions in both Sweden and the US congressional committee
    passed by just one vote, with some politicians strongly criticizing
    the move.

    `Historical events should not be judged at the political level,' said
    Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose coalition government
    opposed the genocide vote.

    `The decision will not help the debate in Turkey, which has become
    increasingly open and tolerant as Turkey has developed closer
    relations with the European Union and made the democratic reforms
    these entail,' said Mr. Bildt, according to a Swedish government
    website.

    Swedish trade with Turkey, while modest, has increased significantly
    over the past few years. According to the most recent data available
    from the Swedish Trade Council, exports to Turkey increased 20 percent
    from 2008 to 2009. Imports declined since 2008, but have stayed fairly
    steady over the past few years.

    'Drastic effects' on bilateral relations
    Turkey and Armenia have taken steps to normalize relations in the past
    year, and with fanfare presided over what was meant to be an opening
    of the border. In mutual trust-building measures, top officials from
    each side have also attended soccer matches in each others' countries.

    But the deal has not yet been approved by either government, and each
    side has accused the other of revising the terms. After the genocide
    vote in Washington, Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said
    normalization efforts would be brought to a `standstill."

    Turkey's ambassador to Sweden, Zergun Koruturk, told a Swedish
    television channel that the vote would have `drastic effects' on
    bilateral relations, according to Reuters.

    `I am very disappointed. Unfortunately, parliamentarians were thinking
    that they were rather historians than parliamentarians.'

    http://www.csmonitor.com/World /Global-News/2010/0312/Turkey-cancels-summit-with- Sweden-over-Armenian-genocide-resolution
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