Friday, December 5 2014

Romanian Ambassador to Armenia
Sorin Vasile has been summoned to Bucharest to give explanations about his
statements made at the American University of Armenia, the foreign Ministry of
Romania says.  

 

Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Bogdan Aurescu
has personally demanded explanations from Ambassador Sorin Vasile. Before that
Bucharest demanded that the Ambassador should apologize for his
"inadequate" statements. The Romanian Foreign Ministry says in a
statement that Bucharest condemns and expresses regret over the homophobic and
anti-Semitic statements of the Ambassador. The Foreign Ministry is against any
statements provoking intolerance. Bucharest says that it will allow no diplomat
to distort Romania's attitude to international issues and to cast a shadow on
its relations with other countries, the statement says.

 

To note, during the lecture delivered at the American
University in Yerevan, Ambassador Vasile made derogatory remarks about sexual
and religious minorities when attempting to answer a question about the moral
imperative of recognizing the Armenian Genocide.  "Talking about the events that happened in the beginning of
the last century, it's very complicated...which is the morality?  To recognize ok...This is a morality. Which
is the morality between the normal couple...The hermaphrodite
couple...yes?  No, not hermaphrodite. Homosexuals
and the normal:men and women, yeah? They are ok..? They are normal, they are
moral. And the homosexuals are moral or? So, which is the same with...you know
everything is relative you know. This is the answer to your question. For you,
it's controversial. For the gay couple, for them it's perfect, this is the
model of the family, yeah? Gay." Next year will be the 100 years of
commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. 
"I'm not saying who is right, who is not right because I don't have
the right to say you know, but..it's quite complicated." Ambassador Sorin
Vasile made comparisons with Donbas and Luhansk and said that he was trying to
read information from three sources. Politics and geopolitics is not
mathematics, he said. Then he touched on the Franco-German reconciliation
process and the process between the Romanians and Hungarians. He said that
Transylvania used to be a Romanian territory but it was under Hungary's control
for many years.  Every country has its
own truth, he said.