Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

Sweden, Turkey foreign ministers condemn Armenian genocide resolution

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Saturday jointly denounced the Swedish Parliament's Thursday passage of a resolution recognizing the Ottoman Empire's killing of Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as genocide. At a meeting of European foreign ministers in northern Finland Davutoglu questioned the rationale of the move, one that Bildt characterized as the "politicization of history." Davutoglu insisted that his country would not succumb to political pressure. Both ministers noted concerns that the resolution would undermine the progress that Armenia and Turkey have made toward stabilizing their relations. The Swedish Parliament adopted the resolution by a vote of 131-130, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador from Stockholm and cancel official events in Sweden. The Swedish resolution came only a week after the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs voted 23-22 to adopt a resolution labeling the killings as genocide. The US government has indicated that it will seek to block the resolution from being put before the full House of Representatives. A similar resolution was passed by the committee in 2007, but it never reached the House floor.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 13, 2010 (boomark / email).