FRENCH AND ARMENIAN LEADERS TO PAY HOMAGE TO MASSACRE VICTIMS

Agence France Presse
Thursday, 21 April 2005

PARIS, April 21 (AFP) – Presidents Jacques Chirac of France and Robert
Kocharian of Armenia will lay a wreath Friday at a Paris monument
commemorating the victims of the massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman
Turkish authorities which began 90 years ago, Chirac’s office said.

The two men will hold talks at the Elysee palace at 5:45 p.m. (15H45
GMT) before being driven to the monument on the banks of the river
Seine which was inaugurated in 2003.

Armenia will this weekend mark the 90th anniversary of what it calls
the genocide perpetrated between 1915 and 1917.

Some 1.5 million people may have died in the massacres, though
the Turkish government puts the figure at between 250,000 and half
a million.

The French parliament adopted a controversial law in 2001 which states
that “France publicly recognises the Armenian genocide.”

France has a large community of Armenians, estimated at around 400,000.