Sweden parliament approves Armenian genocide resolution News
Sweden parliament approves Armenian genocide resolution

[JURIST] The Swedish Parliament [official website, in Swedish] on Thursday voted 131-130 to approve a resolution [text, in Swedish] that recognizes the Ottoman Empire's killing of Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as genocide [JURIST news archive]. Of the 349 assembly members, 88 were absent [AP report]. The resolution was opposed by the ruling center-right coalition and supported by the opposition left. It passed when several members of the ruling party sided with the opposition. The Turkish government has condemned the resolution, recalling its ambassador to Sweden [Reuters report].

The vote comes only a week after the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs [official website] voted 23-22 to adopt [JURIST report] a resolution [H Res 252 text] labeling the killings as genocide. The US government has indicated that it will seek to block the resolution [JURIST report] from being put before the full House of Representatives. A similar resolution was passed by the committee in 2007, but it never reached the House floor [JURIST reports].