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Athens: Events of Remembrance

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  • Athens: Events of Remembrance

    The Hellenic Radio (ERA)
    April 24 2005

    Events of Remembrance

    By Betty Savourdou

    Ninety years today, Sunday, since the genocide of Armenians living
    within the borders of the then Ottoman Empire, and on Sunday night
    10,000 people took to the streets of Yerevan holding lit candles and
    calling Turkey to recognize the massacres as genocide. Wreaths will
    be laid at the monument of the fallen men on Sunday afternoon, while
    at the end of the day Mass will be held in Yerevan and a one-minute
    silence will be observed around the country. In a televised
    interview, Armenian President Robert Kocharian excluded the
    possibility of asking Ankara for financial compensation in exchange
    to recognize the killings as genocide. He also added: "Today
    Armenians marched not only in commemoration and in mourning. They
    also marched to voice their demand for the restoration of human
    rights infringed by Turkey too many years ago, and are calling this
    country to admit the mass killings amounted to genocide."

    Turkey: "Merely WWI Casualties"

    Ninety years after the massacres, the anniversary unites the
    Armenians of the Diaspora, who exceed 9,000,000, that is three times
    more than the actual population of Armenia.

    On this day in 1915 Ottoman Turkey started executing Armenians. Over
    the next two years nearly 1.5 million Armenians were reportedly
    killed or died during deportations from Turkey and now Armenia urges
    the European Union to take the past into consideration, before
    opening negotiation talks with Turkey.

    Ankara continues to refer to the 1915 victims as mere casualties of
    WWI. The only indication of retreat is the suggestion to form a
    common Armenian-Turkish committee to look into the past.

    Events in Athens Too

    Events to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide
    were held in Athens too.

    A central cinema of the Greek capital showed archive material issued
    by the Armenian national committee, while government and other
    political representatives addressed salutations.

    After the event, there was a march towards Syntagma Square and
    wreaths were laid at the monument of the unknown soldier.

    Minister for the Interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos represented the
    government and underlined in his speech that "the matter in the
    troubled world we are living in, is that we cannot be certain there
    will never be such incidents again, if we don't decide not to ever
    tolerate those who actually triggered them, since they haven't taken
    their responsibilities and haven't evaluated relevant experiences
    based on the past."

    "Such anniversaries concern us all. They concern all counties, they
    concern all nations. Because the establishment of human value, the
    implementation of International Law in its total, the establishment
    of the principles that correspond to our times, are lessons that we
    all need to always remember," stressed the minister.

    Regarding the recognition of the Genocide, which is the main demand
    of this year's events, all speakers referred to the fact that an
    increasing number of governments are already doing so, most recent
    among them being Poland and Germany.

    Translated by Sofia Soulioti
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