Swedish Riksdag rejects Azerbaijani-sponsored motion on Karabakh

May 10, 2012 - 11:03 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - On May 9, 2012, the Swedish Riksdag rejected the Azerbaijani-sponsored motion on Nagorno Karabakh.

The motion, introduced last year by Mehmet Kaplan (Green Party) called for, among others, Sweden’s active involvement in the Karabakh conflict, demanding “immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian military forces from occupied Azerbaijan’s territory” and that international organizations should work “for guarantying the safety, security and self-rule of the Armenian minority in Nagorno Karabakh within the territorial boundaries of Azerbaijan”.

Thus, the motion deviated significantly from the existing negotiated proposals, including the so-called Madrid Principles. The motion, being a so-called single motion signed only by one person, was not given a separate consideration of its own, but was voted on together with a number of other issues, reported the Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden.

Instead, the Riksdag adopted the Foreign Committee’s wording, stating that “The Nagorno Karabakh conflict needs a peaceful solution and there is a mechanism to handle the issue. This is the responsibility of the Minsk Group. The Committee supports the efforts which are ongoing within the framework of OSCE”.

The Foreign Committee's text adopted by the Riksdag also included a reflection on the ongoing EU’s Eastern Partnership program with the states in South Caucasus, especially in the spheres of “democracy, freedom of press and respect for human rights”.

The adopted text reads “The Committee notes that the negotiations with the three countries in the association treaty with EU have continued and that Georgia and Armenia have made major progress while the negotiations with Azerbaijan have been more complicated.”