Amid stalled NATO accession talks—and in an apparent effort to avoid upsetting Turkey more than it already has—the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Tobias Billstrom (M), is said to have exerted pressure on the Swedish-Armenian friendship group in the Riksdag—the Swedish parliament, asking senior government officials in private to cancel this year’s annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, The European Conservative reported.
Sweden Democrat MP Bjorn Soder, the chairman of the Swedish-Armenian friendship group, says that group leaders from each party in the coalition government—the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, and the Christian Democrats—were asked by the foreign ministry to consider canceling the commemoration event since it could potentially harm Sweden’s prospects of joining NATO, Samnytt reports.
“We have been asked internally in our parties not to hold a celebration in the Riksdag this year,” Soder told the Stockholm-based newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD).