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Turkish, Swedish ministers condemn genocide vote
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 March 15, 2010
Saariselka, Finland: The foreign ministers of Turkey and Sweden condemned on Saturday a vote in the Swedish parliament that defined the early 20th-century killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is holding informal talks with foreign ministers including Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu in northern Finland, said he was upset by the vote on Thursday and concerned it could affect Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.
"It's regrettable because I think the politicisation of history serves no useful purpose," he told reporters.
"We are interested in the business of reconciliation, and decisions like that tend to raise tensions rather than lower tensions," he said.
Sweden's parliament, by a vote of 131-130, backed a resolution that branded the killing of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, a term that Turkey resolutely rejects.
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