SWISS FM CALMY-REY COMMEMORATES “VICTIMS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”
Today, Azerbaijan
June 12 2006
She also laid a wreath at a memorial for the “victims of the genocide”
by troops of the former Ottoman Empire 90 years ago.
According to Swissinfo/Swiss Radio International (SRI), Swiss Foreign
Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey held talks with her Armenian counterpart,
Vardan Oskanyan, in the capital Yerevan on Monday. The discussions
focused on bilateral relations and the conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh.
Switzerland has offered to act as a mediator in the long-running
conflict in a bid to broker a peace agreement. Earlier this year
Calmy-Rey also visited neighbouring Azerbaijan.
However, Calmy-Rey said neither of the two countries in the southern
Caucasus region had requested further steps by Switzerland.
Calmy-Rey said she also discussed the killing of up to 1.5 million
ethnic Armenians by troops of the former Ottoman Empire between 1915
and 1919.
She laid a wreath at the monument for the “victims of massacre”.
“I wanted to express my sympathy with the people,” she said. She
also played down a possible worsening of relations with Turkey over
the issue.
The Swiss government does not recognise the killings and deportations
as genocide, but one chamber of the Swiss parliament voted in 2003
to follow the United Nations and the European parliament in doing so.
Calmy-Rey also signed an agreement on double taxation in Yerevan in
an effort to spur closer economic relations between Switzerland and
Armenia. Switzerland has been providing development to Yerevan since
a powerful earthquake hit northern Armenia in 1988.