ESTONIAN-ARMENIAN SOCIETY WANTS TURKEY TO REGRET GENOCIDE

Baltic News Service
April 18, 2005

TALLINN, Apr 18 — The Estonian-Armenian Society has adopted an address
to the Estonian parliament in connection with the 90th anniversary
of the Turkish genocide against Armenians, asking that Turkey should
regret the mass murder of Armenians in 1915.

The address states that the history of sufferings of the Armenian
people continued and culminated in 1915 in a horrendous genocide of
particularly gruesome details.

The address underlines that there can be no double morals in attitudes
to crime and that crimes committed by winners of wars are crimes
against humanity, too. Peoples learn to live in peace only when
classification of crimes into bad and good ones stops and when they
are made public independent of who committed them, the address goes
on to say.

“Also Turkey that is aspiring to become a member in the European Union
must be guided by it, the address states. “Admission of former guilt
and regret should be the first steps on that road.”

The address drawn up by member of the Society Einar Laigna was
Monday read out in parliament by Toivo Tootsen, chairman of the
Estonian-Armenian parliamentary group.

Regular annihilation of Armenians broke out in the Ottoman Empire
at the beginning of the previous century and acquired the dimensions
of genocide.

The violence climaxed in 1915 when more than a million Armenians were
killed in a few months. That day is marked as the day of remembrance
of genocide victims in Armenia. April 24 is the state Remembrance
Day in Armenia.

Until today, Turkey refuses to admit the genocide of Armenians.

Members of the Armenian genocide during the Ottoman Empire will be
remembered in Tallinn on April 24.

Priest of the Armenian church in Tallinn Father Garnik told BNS that
the remembrance ceremony would start at noon on April 24 and would be
followed by the laying of flowers at a memorial stone in Tartu Maantee.

There will be a concert of remembrance songs later that evening in
Tallinn’s Niguliste Church.