STOCKHOLM (AFP)-Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt welcomed Turkey's ambassador to Sweden, Zergun Koruturk, back to Stockholm on Thursday after her recall to Ankara following the Swedish parliament's recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Reinfeldt "welcomes that she is coming back to Sweden. It's good that our diplomatic relations are [maintained]," the prime minister's spokesperson Roberta Alenius told AFP on Thursday.

Ambassador Koruturk arrived in the Swedish capital on Tuesday. Before her departure, she told reporters in Ankara her return to Sweden became possible after the Swedish government distanced itself from the parliament's decision.

"The Swedish government has clearly said that the decision would not be put into practice," Koruturk was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying.

Koruturk was summoned back to Ankara on March 11th after the Swedish parliament voted by a narrow margin to approve an opposition-led resolution to recognize the Ottoman massacres of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide, despite the government's suggestion not to do so.

Reinfeldt later expressed regret over the parliament's decision to Ankara, a move which his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called "very positive".

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt also said that the position of his government, which supports Turkey's entry into the European Union, "remains unchanged".

"Our foreign minister also met his Turkish counterpart and he met some Turkish groups living here, so we've been involved in this," Alenius said.

"We had good relations with Turkey and want this to continue," she added.