‘Genocide' bill strains ties with EU ally Sweden

Turkey has expressed outrage over the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs' approval last Thursday of a non-binding resolution calling the killings “genocide,” the vote on which was broadcast live on Turkish television, and recalled its envoy to the United States for consultations. EU-member Sweden has been one of the strongest supporters of Ankara's bid to join the bloc, while the US is generally considered a strong Western ally of NATO-member Turkey.

The issue of the Armenian killings is deeply sensitive in Turkey, which accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks but vehemently denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it amounted to genocide -- a term employed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments.

The Swedish parliament approved the “genocide” bill with a 131-130 vote on Thursday.

“We strongly condemn this resolution, which was clearly a political calculation,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 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,” Erdoğan said, adding that he was cancelling a Turkey-Sweden summit scheduled for March 17.

Sweden’s Ambassador to Turkey Christer Asp was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday morning for Turkey’s uneasiness to be conveyed to him, while Turkish diplomats also voiced Ankara’s expectation that Stockholm would take serious steps to sufficiently compensate for the harm done to the bilateral relations with the parliamentary vote.

Reiterating Ankara’s stance that legislative bodies are not the place to judge history, Turkish diplomats condemned the vote, while Asp, for his part, expressed sadness over the vote and emphasized that the vote was a non-binding decision and that the Swedish government would not accept this advisory decision.

The Swedish resolution passed by an extremely narrow margin, with 131 parliamentary deputies voting in favor and 130 against. Another 88 members of parliament were absent. The measure was opposed by Sweden’s center-right coalition government, but three of their parliamentarians voted in favor of the motion, helping the opposition get it through.

The absence of Mehmet Kaplan, an ethnic Turkish parliamentarian from the Environment Party, during the voting sparked criticism from Turkish groups in Sweden, the Anatolia news agency reported, as the groups argued that the result of the vote could have been different if Kaplan had attended the vote.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a blog post that the vote could complicate efforts between Turkey and Armenia to normalize relations after a century of hostility.

The countries agreed last year to establish diplomatic ties and open their border if their parliaments approved peace accords, but the votes have not taken place, and the governments have accused each other of trying to rewrite the texts.

“Historical events should not be judged at a political level, but should be left to the parties concerned to discuss on the basis of current research,” Bildt said.

“Regrettably, the decision of the Riksdag will not make a positive contribution to the ongoing process of normalization between Turkey and Armenia, in particular the establishment of a commission charged with investigating the events in 1915. This is a process that we have every reason to support, as it will also lead to increased stability and security in the region. Moreover, 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,” he concluded.

Zergün Korutürk, Turkey’s ambassador to Sweden, told Swedish television program “Aktuellt” that the vote would have “drastic effects” on bilateral relations that were unlikely to be overcome in a short time.

The Turkish Embassy in Stockholm told the press on Friday that Korutürk was scheduled to depart for Turkey on Friday afternoon. Turkey has signaled that its ambassador to the United States will not return until the fate of the non-binding congressional resolution, which also passed by a razor-thin margin, is clear.