Swiss probe on Bağış for genocide nix

ANKARA

Bağış’s fury over the French ‘genocide denial’ bill brings him a Swiss probe. AA photo

The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned Switzerland’s ambassador to Turkey yesterday after Zurich’s public prosecutor launched a preliminary inquiry into Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bağış after he recently denied the Armenian “genocide” while visiting the canton.

Foreign Ministry officials told Ambassador Raimond Cunz that the inquiry was unacceptable to Turkey and demanded an explanation, a Turkish diplomat told the Hürriyet Daily News.

“Can’t a minister of a country express his views speaking in another country? It’s ridiculous,” Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ told reporters yesterday.

Zurich Public Prosecutor Christine Braunschweig launched the probe into Bağış after he said “the Armenian genocide doesn’t exist,” daily Hürriyet reported.

“There is no Armenian genocide. Let them arrest me,” Bağış said last week following a question from a French reporter on the 1915 killings.

Braunschweig confirmed the probe and told Doğan news agency that they were looking into whether Bağış had said the words. “We will look into Minister Egemen Bağış’s immunity,” Braunschweig said. “If there is anything illegal and if he does not have diplomatic immunity, then we will file the lawsuit.”

Bağış has refused to speak on the matter until the initial probe ends, Hürriyet reported.

France,