LAUSANNE (AP) – A Turkish politician due to stand trial for allegedly breaking Switzerland’s anti-racism laws said he will produce documents proving that the mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century were “regrettable reciprocal massacres,” but not genocide, according to an interview published yesterday. Dogu Perincek, the leader of the Turkish Workers’ Party, said he had obtained Russian documents proving the killings by Turks between 1915 and 1918 were the result of ethnic fighting that also claimed Turkish victims, according to the interview in daily Le Matin. The case will test whether it is a violation of Switzerland’s anti-racism law to deny that the Turks committed genocide in the 1915 killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians. Perincek was charged with breaking the law after repeatedly denying the genocide during a visit to Switzerland in 2005, and is due to appear in a Lausanne court today. He could face up to three years in prison and an unspecified fine if convicted.

ANKARA (AFP) – A Turkish air force pilot was killed on a training flight when his aircraft crashed in the west of the country yesterday, the Anatolia news agency reported, quoting local officials. The plane had taken off from an air base at Cigli, near Izmir, on the Aegean coast, and crashed for as yet unknown reasons, the report said. The body of the pilot, a lieutenant, was recovered by helicopter from the crash site some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the town of Manisa.

Iran yesterday said it was sending a team of diplomats to Turkey to find out how a former deputy defense minister mysteriously vanished last month while on a trip to the neighboring country. Ali Reza Asghari, a deputy defense minister under the previous government of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, is said to have disappeared after checking into a hotel in Istanbul on a private visit in February. “Mr Asghari disappeared during a recent trip to Turkey and the Foreign Ministry is following the affair, most notably by sending a consular mission,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters. “Iran is demanding explanations from the Turkish authorities,” he added. (AFP)