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French and Armenian presidents lay wreath for Armenians massacred in Ottoman Turkey
AP Worldstream
Apr 22, 2005
The French and Armenian presidents laid a wreath Friday at a Paris
monument commemorating the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire.
French President Jacques Chirac welcomed Robert Kocharian of Armenia
at the Elysee Palace with a hug. The two held talks for an hour before
driving to the nearby monument inaugurated in 2003 on the banks of
the Seine River.
This weekend, Armenia marks the 90th anniversary of what it calls the
genocide perpetrated by Turkey between 1915 and 1917, killing up to
1.5 million Armenians. Turkey rejects the claim, saying the number of
deaths is inflated and that the victims were killed in civil unrest
during the collapse of the empire.
The French parliament officially recognized the killings as a genocide
in 2001, one of several moves that strained ties between Paris and
Ankara. Last year, Chirac told Turkey it would have to recognize
the mass killings as genocide if it wanted to become a member of the
European Union, insisting the French would otherwise vote Turkey out
in a referendum.
The Armenian community in Paris hailed Friday's ceremony as an
"extremely important" gesture recognizing the Armenian genocide,
according to a statement by the Committee for the Defense of the
Armenian Cause.
AP Worldstream
Apr 22, 2005
The French and Armenian presidents laid a wreath Friday at a Paris
monument commemorating the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire.
French President Jacques Chirac welcomed Robert Kocharian of Armenia
at the Elysee Palace with a hug. The two held talks for an hour before
driving to the nearby monument inaugurated in 2003 on the banks of
the Seine River.
This weekend, Armenia marks the 90th anniversary of what it calls the
genocide perpetrated by Turkey between 1915 and 1917, killing up to
1.5 million Armenians. Turkey rejects the claim, saying the number of
deaths is inflated and that the victims were killed in civil unrest
during the collapse of the empire.
The French parliament officially recognized the killings as a genocide
in 2001, one of several moves that strained ties between Paris and
Ankara. Last year, Chirac told Turkey it would have to recognize
the mass killings as genocide if it wanted to become a member of the
European Union, insisting the French would otherwise vote Turkey out
in a referendum.
The Armenian community in Paris hailed Friday's ceremony as an
"extremely important" gesture recognizing the Armenian genocide,
according to a statement by the Committee for the Defense of the
Armenian Cause.