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On Wednesday, May 9, 2012, the Swedish Riksdag rejected the Azeri sponsored motion on Nagorno-Karabakh, says the press release, issued by the Union of Armenian Associations of Sweden. The motion, signed only by one person, was not given a separate consideration of its own, but was voted on together with a number of other issues.

The motion on Nagorno-Karabakh, which was introduced last year by Mehmet Kaplan of Green Party, called for Sweden’s active involvement in the Karabakh conflict, demanding “immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian military forces from occupied Azeri territory”. It also called the international organizations to work “for guarantying the safety, security and self-rule of the Armenian minority in Nagorno-Karabakh within the territorial boundaries of Azerbaijan”. Thus, the press release says, the motion deviated significantly from the existing negotiated proposals, including the so-called Madrid Principles.

Instead of this motion, the Swedish Riksdag adopted the Foreign Committee’s wording, stating that “The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict needs a peaceful solution and there is a mechanism to handle the issue. This is the responsibility of the Minsk Group. The Committee supports the efforts which are ongoing within the framework of OSCE.”

Noteworthy that the Foreign Committee's text adopted by the Riksdag also included a reflection on the ongoing EU Eastern Partnership Program with the states in South Caucasus, especially in the spheres of “democracy, freedom of press and respect for human rights”. The adopted by the Riksdag text reads: “The Committee notes that the negotiations with the three countries in the association treaty with EU have continued and that Georgia and Armenia have made major progress while the negotiations with Azerbaijan have been more complicated.”