Sweden’s Azeris more active than Turks in anti-Armenian propaganda

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Azerbaijani and Turkish communities in Sweden are interrelated, at least when it comes to issues which concern Armenians, i.e. mainly the Genocide recognition process and Artsakh, the spokesperson of the Board of Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden stated.

According to Vahagn Avedian, since the Riksdag's recognition of the Genocide last spring, the Azeri community has been more active than the Turks. “They have sent a lot of emails to the members of Riksdag and their ambassador has been on an “information tour” around Sweden lecturing about Nagorno Karabakh and other issues. They have also written a number of emails demanding a Swedish recognition of the ‘Khojali genocide’,” he said in a conversation with a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

“I'm not that informed about the Turk and Azeri communities in other Scandinavian countries, but I assume that Sweden is (parallel to the Armenian Diaspora) their major gathering in these countries,” Mr. Avedian noted.

“As far as the Kurds are concerned, we had much more contacts with them for 2-3 years ago than what we have today. Then there was a parliamentary group for Human and Minority rights in Turkey which our organizations, along with the Assyrians, were member of. But the chairwoman of that group did not run for parliamentary elections last fall and the group is quite dead. Back in those days the group held seminars and information gatherings where we met the Kurdish representatives and had other contacts on the side. But since about a year ago, along with the activities of the parliamentary group, our regular contacts with the Kurds have subsided,” Mr. Avedian said.

On March 11, 2010, the Swedish Parliament recognized the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire in 1915 by 131 votes in favor and 130 against.