Romania’s ambassador to Armenia was recalled to Bucharest to give ‘’explanations’’ after he reportedly made anti-Semitic and homophobic statements as well as disrespectful remarks on the Armenian genocide.
According to the Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism (MCA Romania), the ambassador, Sorin Vasile, made the controversial statements during a speech at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan. He was recalled last Friday.
Replying to a student’s question on whether he found moral fault in the systematic massacre of Armenian civilians by the Ottoman Turks during World War I, Vasile said, “It is very complicated. What is moral?” He added, “Are homosexuals moral? Everything is relative.”
Elaborating on relativism, he told a joke about Jewish bosses who would not hire an accountant who said that 10 plus 10 equals 20, but hired one who told them that it equaled whatever they wanted it to.
Vasile apologized for making the remarks, according to romaniatv.net.
But MCA Romania said Vasile had initially refused to do so and called for the Romanian foreign ministry to take disciplinary action against him.
“He dismissed the Armenian genocide by a phrase, adopted homophobic attitudes and made jokes about Jews being greedy” and “ready to break any law in order to make a profit, a clear anti-Semitic stereotype,” MCA Romania founders Maximillian Marco Katz and Marius Draghici said.
Romania's foreign ministry voiced ‘’regrets'' and firmly condemned the ambassador’s public remarks that were anti-Semitic and homophobic in nature, a spokesperson said in Bucharest.