TURKEY TAKES STEPS TO ADDRESS ARMENIA ISSUES
By Daren Butler
Reuters
March 25 2010
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s ambassador to Sweden will resume her
duties within days, two weeks after being recalled in protest at
Sweden’s parliament branding as genocide the World War One killing
of Armenians by Ottoman forces.
The move, announced by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in an interview
late on Wednesday, was a step to ease tensions over a highly sensitive
issue which has cast a shadow over efforts to normalize ties between
arch-rivals Turkey and Armenia.
In a separate Armenia-related development, Turkey announced on Thursday
that permission had been given for Christian worship to be held once
a year at an abandoned island church restored as a museum in Eastern
Turkey’s Lake Van.
The recall of the envoy to Sweden, a strong supporter of Turkey’s bid
to join the EU, came a week after Ankara recalled its ambassador to
the United States because a U.S. congressional committee approved a
similar resolution on the 1915 killings.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan also canceled a Turkey-Sweden
summit scheduled for this month in response to the ruling which was
opposed by Sweden’s center-right coalition.
Turkey accepts many Christian Armenians died in partisan fighting
beginning in 1915 but vehemently denies that up to 1.5 million were
killed and that it amounted to genocide — a term employed by some
Western historians and foreign parliaments.
Davutoglu said Ambassador Zergun Koruturk would return to her duties
by the start of next week, but said Ankara was still assessing when
the ambassador to Washington would return. That decision will be tied
to the fate of the U.S. resolution.
"The examples of the United States and Sweden are not the same. The
Swedish government clearly showed its opposition to acceptance of
the bill," he said.
ARMENIAN CHURCH Separately, the Culture Ministry has given its approval
for a religious service to be held once a year in the recently
restored Armenian church on the island of Akdamar in Van province,
the regional governor’s office said.
The 10th-Century church is located in eastern Turkey, which was home
to ethnic Armenians before World War One. It reopened in 2007 as a
museum. The site has significant symbolic importance for Armenians,
and religious leaders had suggested that religious services be allowed
once a year.
The Van governor’s office had last year sought permission from the
ministry for such a ceremony and the governor was reported as saying
by state-run Anatolian news agency that the decision would boost
faith tourism in the region.
"Nobody should have any doubt that we will welcome our guests from
home and abroad in the best possible way on September 12," Governor
Munir Karaloglu said.
The decision came amid mutual recriminations between Turkey and Armenia
over the lack of progress on accords which they signed last year to
establish diplomatic ties and open their border. Neither parliament
has yet approved the protocols.
Relations have also been soured this month by Erdogan’s threat to
deport thousands of Armenian migrants working illegally in Turkey.
Neighboring Armenia has compared Erdogan’s warning to the language
that preceded the 1915 mass killings.
(Writing by Daren Butler)