Swedish Parliament to discuss so called Armenian genocide

Thursday, 11 March 2010 11:19

On March 11, the Swedish Parliament is to hold a vote on a bill recognizing so called Armenian 'genocide' in Ottoman Turkey.

Bills recognizing so called Armenian 'genocide' have been proposed before only to be rejected. This time, the Social Democrats, who used to vote against the bills, unanimously supported it last November.

Three left parties developed a concept of Sweden’s foreign policy which is supposed to be an alternative to the official foreign policy. This new policy provides for the recognition of so called Armenian 'genocide'.

One hundred and seventy-eight members of the Swedish Parliament represent the Government, while 171 are left-wingers. The bill will be rejected if the pro-government MPs vote against it. But three of the 15 MPs are members of pro-government parties. The bill will be passed if the three MPs are joined by at least one more member of pro-government forces.

Turkish organizations in Sweden have gathered 5,000 signatures against the bill.

A delegation of the Turkish Grand National Assembly visited Sweden a month ago to warn their Swedish counterparts the approval of the bill would cause damage to Turkish-Swedish relations.