Armenia considers the recognition of the Armenian Genocide a matter of universal agenda, because April 24 is not only a day of remembrance for the innocent victims of the Genocide, but also a crime of the gravest kind against humanity. As reported by Armenpress, this was stated by Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in his message on the occasion of the 105th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
“We are grateful to all those states, international institutions, spiritual and secular leaders who express their solidarity with the Armenian people,” said the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia.
According to Pashinyan, as a result of the genocide that lasted for years and was carried out by state decision, Western Armenia was completely emptied of its Armenian population; 1.5 million of our compatriots were massacred, hundreds of thousands of Armenians became refugees, deprived of the right to live in their historic homeland.
“As a result of the Armenian Genocide, the Great Calamity, the Armenian people not only suffered enormous human losses but also were subjected to dispossession of their homeland and cultural destruction. The losses to our people’s spiritual and religious heritage were irreparable, and its material damages were immense. The Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the authorities of the Ottoman Empire was a crime not only against the identity of our people but also against the whole of human civilization. And April 24, 1915, became the most powerful symbol of this entire process, because on that day hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, religious and political figures were arrested, exiled, killed or disappeared by order of the Young Turk government. For 55 years now, on April 24, we commemorate the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide. It was first in 1965 that thousands of Armenians were able to hold a mass commemoration event in the capital Yerevan on that day. And this was connected not only with the ‘thaw period’ of the Soviet Union, but also with the fact that in 1946-49 around one hundred thousand Armenians, particularly descendants of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, were repatriated to Armenia, became a full part of Soviet Armenia, rekindling the pain, memory and longing smoldering here. The authorities of Soviet Armenia made the decision to declare April 24 the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide and to build the Genocide Memorial complex at Tsitsernakaberd. And this majestic monument became one of the most eloquent symbols of our people’s eternity,” he emphasized.
