Turkey recalls envoy to Sweden over Armenia vote

The resolution including recognition of Armenian allegations was approved with 131 votes against 130.

Foreign Relations Commission of the Swedish Parliament discussed the resolution on March 2.

Parliamentarians from the leftist Social Democrat Party, Left Party and Environment Party were in favor of the resolution.

Some parliamentarians of the rightist parties opposed the resolution saying Swedish Parliament was not an international court.

"We strongly condemn this resolution, which is made for political calculations," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement, referring to the Swedish parliament vote.

"It does not correspond to the close friendship of our two nations. We are recalling our ambassador for consultations," Erdogan said, adding that he was cancelling a Turkey-Sweden summit scheduled for March 17.

President Abdullah Gul also said that the resolution did not have any credibility.

Gul said, "all we know how such decisions are made. It does not have any credibility for us."

Those who made this decision and who voted in favor of the resolution were not historians, he said.

Mehmet Kaplan, Turkish parliamentarian of the Environment Party, said the resolution could obstruct the recent developments in Turkey and called on the parliamentarians to vote against the resolution.

Zergun Koruturk, Turkey's ambassador to Sweden, told Swedish television programme Aktuellt that the vote would have "drastic effects" on bilateral relations which were unlikely to be overcome in a short time.

"I am very disappointed," Koruturk said. "Unfortunately, parliamentarians were thinking that they were rather historians than parliamentarians, and it's very, very unfortunate."

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs last Thursday approved the resolution on Armenian allegations regarding incidents of 1915.

Turkey strongly rejects the genocide allegations and regards the events as civil strife in wartime which claimed lives of many Turks and Armenians.

Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols on October 10, 2009 to normalize relations between the two countries. The protocols envisage the two countries to establish diplomatic ties and open the border that has been close since 1993.

Turkey and Armenia also agreed to take steps to operate a sub-commission on impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archive to define existing problems and formulate recommendations, in which Armenian, Turkish as well as Swiss and other international experts would take part. However, on January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of Armenia declared a decision of constitutional conformity on the protocols. Turkey thought the fifth article of Armenian Constitutional Court's verdict regarding the protocols was against the target and basis of the protocols.


/World Bulletin/