Senate washes its hands of "genocide" question

swissinfo
August 6, 2005 6:54 PM

Briner {president of the Senate foreign affairs committee} said the committee had decided that the death or deportation of 800,000-1.8 million Armenians between 1915 and 1919 would not be the subject of a plenary session.
[...]
Briner said the committee believed that it was more for the parties involved, namely Turkey and Armenia, to reach an agreement.
[...]
Briner said a mixed commission of historians had to "work through the terrible events" – just as Switzerland had reappraised its history during the Second World War.
[...]
[...] in March, the Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gül talked about establishing a commission of historians from both sides and opening all files and archives.
[...]
In May a group of Turkish historians had to cancel a conference debating the genocide after the Turkish justice minister accused them of "stabbing Turkey in the back".
[...]
At the end of July the Swiss ambassador in Ankara had to deflect a barrage of diplomatic flak concerning the Swiss investigation of a Turkish politician who had proffered revisionist views about the Armenian genocide in 1915.

Then on August 5 the Turkish authorities postponed indefinitely a visit to Turkey in September by Swiss Economics Minister Joseph Deiss, citing agenda problems of his Turkish counterpart.
[...]
"That’s a typical diplomatic excuse if you can’t think of a better one," said Briner diplomatically.

"The important thing is that we now show some guts," he said. "I get the impression that the Turkish government wants to placate its people with this sabre-rattling."

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.