Turkey protests Swiss probe against minister

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Monday summoned the Swiss ambassador to protest his country’s probe of a Turkish official who is alleged to have denied that Armenians endured a genocide.

Swiss laws criminalizes denying genocide, but Turkey insists there was no systematic campaign in the 1915 killings of 1.5 Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

Turkey’s chief European Union negotiator Egemen Bagis was alleged to have said in Switzerland, “There is no Armenian genocide. Let them come and arrest me.”

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking anonymously due to government rules, said Swiss Ambassador Raimund Kunz was told Monday the probe was “unacceptable.”

Zurich prosecutor Christine Braunschweig confirmed officials have opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations.

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag on Monday called the probe “ridiculous.”

“Bagis expressed his view in a country which apparently has no tolerance for freedom of expression,” he said.

Turkey itself is under intense pressure from the European Union to increase freedom of speech and stop prosecuting writers, intellectuals and journalists for expressing their views.

In Turkey, the killing of Armenians is an extremely sensitive issue. Some people, including Nobel Prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted for statements on the massacres of Armenians, but charges of insulting Turkey were dropped.

In 2008, a Swiss court convicted three Turkish men of racism for denying the deaths amounted to genocide. The men have been fined but received no jail sentences.

Most historians contend that the killings as the Ottoman Empire broke up was the 20th century’s first genocide, and several European countries recognize the massacres as such.

But Turkey maintains there was no systematic campaign to kill Armenians and that many Turks also died during the chaotic disintegration of the empire. It also says that death toll is inflated.

Turkey’s relations with France have already been strained over a bill that also criminalizes denial that the killings constituted genocide. France’s Constitutional Council has been asked late January to determine whether that bill violates the constitution.

Turkey suspended military and economic cooperation after the French lower house approval of the measure in December. The Senate gave it the green light in late January.

President Nicolas Sarkozy — who personally backed the bill — must sign the legislation for it to become law.

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Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed.

via Turkey protests Swiss probe against minister.