World Armenian Congress leader issues New Year address

ITAR-TASS News Agency
December 22, 2004 Wednesday 5:07 AM Eastern Time

MOSCOW, December 22 — Ara Abramyan, President of the World Armenian
Congress, has congratulated members of the Armenian Diaspora on the
New Year and Christmas.

In 2005 “we shall observe a grim anniversary – 90 years since the
beginning of all-out physical extermination of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey, which claimed the lives of 1.5 million men, women and
children. The memory of the guiltless people, who died that time,
urges all Armenians throughout the world to pool efforts even more
closely in the interests of resolving the problems, which are of vital
importance for our nation: to make Turkey admit that it has committed
an especially grave crime, and to protect the interests and security
of Armenia, our historic motherland,” says the congratulatory address
issued by him.

“Spiurk (the Armenian term for “Diaspora”) is an inseparable part of
the Armenian nation. No matter where Armenians live, their thoughts
and aspirations are always with their historic motherland. Armenians
are deeply grateful to the countries, which gave shelter to them and
became their new homeland,” the document said.

“They do their best for promoting the prosperity of those countries
and continue to be their law-abiding citizens. At the same time, they
are culturally and spiritually bound with Armenia, which they regard
as a guarantor of the liquidation of consequences of the genocide,
of a just political settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem and
of the preservation of the national identity of Armenians, of their
language, culture and traditions,” the document continued.

“Diversity along with the unity of thoughts and aspiration – this is
our motto. We regard it as a guarantee of our future accomplishments,”
Ara Abramyan stressed in conclusion.