(Agencia Prensa Armenia).- Turkey suspended bilateral relations with Paraguay and threatened to boycott trade with the country after the Senate unanimously approved on October 29 an official recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Turkey’s ambassador in Argentina, Taner Karakas, concurring in Paraguay and Uruguay, met with Senator Victor Bogado, of the ruling Colorado Party, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Affairs. According to local reports, Karakas expressed “disagreement and concern on the declaration.”
After that meeting, Victor Bogado said on Thursday November 19 that he would present “an alternative project as a way of rectifying the position of the Senate.” “Turkey was deeply concerned about the term ‘genocide’, given that this happened before the creation of the same Turkish state,” said Bogado and added, “the Senate declaration is nonbinding with the government’s position.”
On November 24, the politician Rafael Filizzola Serra published on ABC newspaper an article titled “The Armenian Genocide and our dignity as a sovereign country,” in which he stressed that the decision of the Senate of Paraguay was “a sovereign decision consistent with the history of our country. Our diplomacy shows a supine ignorance of the current international position on the Armenian Genocide and historical facts found by the intellectual community.”
