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ARMENIANS REMEMBER THE VICTIMS OF THE FIRST GENOCIDE OF THE 20-TH CENTURY
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS: Hundreds of thousands of Armenians marched
today a steep road leading to the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan to pay
respect to the memory of 1.5 million of their brethren and sisters killed by
the government of the Ottoman Empire in the 1915 Genocide.
President Robert Kocharian, Prime Minister Andranik Margarian, parliament
speaker Arthur Baghdasarian and other Armenian leaders visited the Memorial
in the morning to lay wreaths and flowers at the monument. Catholicos
Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, conducted a prayer
service in memory of the dead.
Addressing an international conference in Yerevan earlier this week,
dedicated to the 90-th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians in the
Ottoman empire, President Kocharian urged Turkey to recognize the crime,
saying such recognition is essential for the reconciliation of the Armenian
and Turkish peoples.
"Recognition is important for Turkish-Armenian relations as it would
provide answers to numerous questions dividing our two peoples and enable
them to look to the future," he said. "We remember the past with pain but
not with hatred. It is difficult for us to understand the reaction of the
Turkish side which manifests itself not only through the denial of the past
but also the blockade of present Armenia," he said.
In an interview to a Russian RTR TV channel on the eve of the 90-th
anniversary of the genocide Kocharian said it was strange that "malice has
been preserved by the side responsible for the crime and not by the victim
of that crime".
Kocharian also said that his nation wanted justice and not in the sense
of some compensation, but first of all, in moral sense. He added that there
probably were legal grounds for seeking compensation, but the world had
moved on and that it was necessary to look into the future and not into the
past.
Foreign diplomats, members of parliaments from more than 15 countries,
went today to the Genocide Memorial to pay respects to 1.5 million Armenians
. Among them were delegations from France, Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Canada,
Spain, Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Georgia and other
countries.
Former president of Poland Lech Walesa, Israeli Knesset's member Yosi
Sarid and other dignitaries had paid their respects to the memory of
Armenians earlier this week.
It was on the night of April 24, 1915, when the Turkish government placed
under arrest more than 200 Armenian community leaders in Constantinople.
Hundreds more were apprehended soon after. They were all sent to prison in
Anatolia, where most were summarily executed. In a single year, 1915, the
Armenians were robbed of their millennia-old heritage. The desecration of
churches, the burning of libraries, the ruination of towns and villages --
all erased an ancient civilization.
With the disappearance of the Armenians from their homeland, most of the
symbols of their culture -- schools, monasteries, artistic monuments, and
historical sites -- were destroyed by the Ottoman government.
The latest nation to recognize the genocide was Poland when its
parliament passed a resolution condemning the Armenian massacres and in
Germany, members of parliament from across the political spectrum appealed
to Turkey to accept the massacre of Armenians as part of its history, saying
this would help its EU aspirations.
Polish Nobel laureate and former president Lech Walesa said during a
visit to Yerevan that Armenians have the right to demand that the European
Union bar Turkey from joining the bloc unless it admitted to genocide. "It
is a just claim of the Armenians," he said.
ARMENIANS REMEMBER THE VICTIMS OF THE FIRST GENOCIDE OF THE 20-TH CENTURY
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS: Hundreds of thousands of Armenians marched
today a steep road leading to the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan to pay
respect to the memory of 1.5 million of their brethren and sisters killed by
the government of the Ottoman Empire in the 1915 Genocide.
President Robert Kocharian, Prime Minister Andranik Margarian, parliament
speaker Arthur Baghdasarian and other Armenian leaders visited the Memorial
in the morning to lay wreaths and flowers at the monument. Catholicos
Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, conducted a prayer
service in memory of the dead.
Addressing an international conference in Yerevan earlier this week,
dedicated to the 90-th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians in the
Ottoman empire, President Kocharian urged Turkey to recognize the crime,
saying such recognition is essential for the reconciliation of the Armenian
and Turkish peoples.
"Recognition is important for Turkish-Armenian relations as it would
provide answers to numerous questions dividing our two peoples and enable
them to look to the future," he said. "We remember the past with pain but
not with hatred. It is difficult for us to understand the reaction of the
Turkish side which manifests itself not only through the denial of the past
but also the blockade of present Armenia," he said.
In an interview to a Russian RTR TV channel on the eve of the 90-th
anniversary of the genocide Kocharian said it was strange that "malice has
been preserved by the side responsible for the crime and not by the victim
of that crime".
Kocharian also said that his nation wanted justice and not in the sense
of some compensation, but first of all, in moral sense. He added that there
probably were legal grounds for seeking compensation, but the world had
moved on and that it was necessary to look into the future and not into the
past.
Foreign diplomats, members of parliaments from more than 15 countries,
went today to the Genocide Memorial to pay respects to 1.5 million Armenians
. Among them were delegations from France, Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Canada,
Spain, Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Georgia and other
countries.
Former president of Poland Lech Walesa, Israeli Knesset's member Yosi
Sarid and other dignitaries had paid their respects to the memory of
Armenians earlier this week.
It was on the night of April 24, 1915, when the Turkish government placed
under arrest more than 200 Armenian community leaders in Constantinople.
Hundreds more were apprehended soon after. They were all sent to prison in
Anatolia, where most were summarily executed. In a single year, 1915, the
Armenians were robbed of their millennia-old heritage. The desecration of
churches, the burning of libraries, the ruination of towns and villages --
all erased an ancient civilization.
With the disappearance of the Armenians from their homeland, most of the
symbols of their culture -- schools, monasteries, artistic monuments, and
historical sites -- were destroyed by the Ottoman government.
The latest nation to recognize the genocide was Poland when its
parliament passed a resolution condemning the Armenian massacres and in
Germany, members of parliament from across the political spectrum appealed
to Turkey to accept the massacre of Armenians as part of its history, saying
this would help its EU aspirations.
Polish Nobel laureate and former president Lech Walesa said during a
visit to Yerevan that Armenians have the right to demand that the European
Union bar Turkey from joining the bloc unless it admitted to genocide. "It
is a just claim of the Armenians," he said.