{"id":159438,"date":"2012-02-07T11:53:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T07:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=159438"},"modified":"2012-02-07T11:55:21","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T07:55:21","slug":"swiss-probe-into-turkey-minister-denying-genocide-because-of-armenian-diaspora-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/02\/07\/swiss-probe-into-turkey-minister-denying-genocide-because-of-armenian-diaspora-complaint.html","title":{"rendered":"Swiss Probe into Turkey Minister Denying Genocide Because of Armenian Diaspora Complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Zurich prosecutor on Monday launched an investigation into remarks by Egemen Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f, Turkey&#8217;s EU affairs minister and chief EU negotiator, after he said in Zurich that there was no Armenian Genocide and that Swiss authorities could arrest him if they wanted to, <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayszaman.com\/news-270604-swiss-prosecutor-probes-bagis-over-genocide-remarks-sparks-diplomatic-row.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Today&#8217;s Zaman<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey swiftly responded to the news of investigation, with the Swiss ambassador in Ankara being summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Monday afternoon. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Feridun Sinirlio\u011flu, who met Swiss Ambassador Raimund Kunz, demanded an official explanation and informed Kunz that the investigation was \u201cunacceptable,\u201d sources said.<\/p>\n<p>News about the prosecution&#8217;s move was published in the Swiss daily Neue Z\u00fcrcher Zeitung. The Zurich Chief Prosecutor&#8217;s Office launched the investigation into <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2012\/01\/30\/let-them-come-and-arrest-me-turkish-minister-denies-armenian-genocide-in-switzerland.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f&#8217;s remarks<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> \u2014 which he made last month in Zurich on his way back from the World Economic Forum at Davos \u2014 based on a complaint filed by members of Switzerland&#8217;s Armenian community.<\/p>\n<p>Z\u00fcrich State Prosecutor Christine Braunschweig was quoted by the daily as having said: \u201cLast week we received a petition about this issue, informing us that Mr. Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f violated the anti-racism Article 261 of the Swiss Penal Code. Our prosecutor&#8217;s office has taken this allegation seriously and launched an investigation. We will investigate whether Egemen Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f uttered words denying the Armenian Genocide as asserted in the petition. We will also see if he has diplomatic immunity. At the end of this, we will press charges against him if there indeed is a violation and if he cannot benefit from diplomatic immunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cihangir \u015eahin, Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f&#8217;s press secretary, said the minister will not comment on the issue until the prosecutor&#8217;s preliminary investigation is completed.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Zurich Chief Prosecutor&#8217;s Office launched the investigation into Ba\u011f\u0131\u015f&#8217;s remarks based on a complaint filed by members of Switzerland&#8217;s Armenian community.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[10372,37823,13334,16861,17065,10222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}