STOCKHOLM (AP) — The deputy chairman of a Swedish-Turkish association has resigned after derogatory comments he made about Armenians last week.

Barbaros Leylani, who called for death "to Armenian dogs" at a Stockholm rally, apologized Monday on the association's website saying he'd been misunderstood.

Swedish legal watchdog Juridikfronten said it had reported the speech for incitement to racial hatred to police and an Armenian association says it also plans to make a police report.

Tensions remain high between Turkey and Armenia over the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies genocide, saying the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.