Armenia – Armenians mark Genocide Remembarence Day, Yerevan, 24Apr2009
Hundreds of thousands of people silently marched to a hilltop memorial in Yerevan on Friday in an annual remembrance of more than one million of fellow Armenians killed in Ottoman Turkey in what is widely considered the first genocide of the 20th century.
As always, a steady stream of mourners flowed to the genocide memorial on the Tsitsernakabert hill overlooking the city center throughout the day, laying flowers by its eternal fire surrounded by twelve inward-bending basalt columns.
The day marked the 94th anniversary of the arrest and subsequent execution by the regime of the Young Turks of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. That was followed by the mass killings and depurations of the virtually entire ethnic Armenian population of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
The somber commemoration began in the morning with a traditional prayer service at Tsitsernakabert led by Catholicos Garegin II, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and attended by President Serzh Sarkisian and other top government officials.
Armenia – Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, Catholicos mark Genocide Remembrance Day, Yerevan, 24Apr2009
In a written address to the nation, Sarkisian described the Armenian genocide as a “crime against humanity” and said Armenia’s government will continue to campaign for its greater international recognition. “For the Armenian people and the Republic of Armenia, international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide is a matter of restoring historical justice,” he said.
“We have repeatedly pointed out that the process of international recognition of the genocide is not directed against the Turkish people and that Turkey’s recognition of the genocide is not a precondition for establishing bilateral relations,” added Sarkisian. He praised in that regard “those Turkish intellectuals who share our pain.”
Senior members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), one of the four parties represented in Sarkisian’s coalition government were conspicuously absent from a large group of officials who accompanied the president. Dashnaktsutyun on Thursday strongly condemned a far-reaching agreement announced by the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministries the previous night. It said the announced “roadmap” for normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations dealt a serious blow to the decades-long Armenian campaign for genocide recognition.
Armen Rustamian, one of the nationalist party’s leaders, said the Turkish-Armenian deal, many details of which are not known, all but precluded the use of the word genocide by U.S. President Barack Obama in a statement due later on Friday. “I had some expectations, but after this statement those expectations are almost gone,” he told RFE/RL while visiting the genocide memorial.
According to Rustamian, Sarkisian did not consult with Dashnaktsutyun leaders before signing up to the U.S.-backed statement that seems to have taken the party off the guard. He confirmed that they will decide whether or not to quit the ruling coalition after holding a meeting with Sarkisian “in the coming days.” “This is not the kind of issue that can be taken lightly,” said Rustamian. “We have to make a thorough decision after discussing it in depth.”
A deputy chairman of Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) defended the Turkish-Armenian statement and claimed that Dashnaktsutyun’s reaction to it was “not that tough.” “I think [the statement] is only the beginning and it is wrong to expect a very quick result,” Razmik Zohrabian told RFE/RL.As always, a steady stream of mourners flowed to the genocide memorial on the Tsitsernakabert hill overlooking the city center throughout the day, laying flowers by its eternal fire surrounded by twelve inward-bending basalt columns.
An elderly Armenian carries flowers to the genocide memorial in Yerevan on April 24, 2009.
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