LEH VALENSA JOINS CALLS FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION

Armenpress

YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS: The former leader of the legendary
Polish “Solidarity”, laureate of the Nobel prize for peace and the
first democratically elected president of Poland Leh Valensa has
joined today his voice to international calls for recognition of the
Armenian genocide.

Addressing an international conference in Yerevan, dedicated to the
90-th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Valensa said:” If I or
any of us let this horrific crime, the suffering of the people sink
into oblivion then God will never remember about our existence.”

Leh Valensa recalled that mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
empire had began long before 1915, citing the slaughter of Armenians
at the order of Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1894. This practice was caught
up and “elaborated” by the government of Young Turks in 1915.

“Massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman empire were the first
genocide of the 20-th century. Today we commemorate the memory of
its victims. The justice must win,’ he said, endorsing Armenia’s
demands that before joining the EU Turkey must acknowledge the crime
against Armenians.

Valensa argued that before the fall of the Soviet Union, when Turkey
was a key NATO ally in countering the USSR, western powers would not
go against Turkey, “but the end of cold war has changed the situation
drastically,” he said, reminding of 2 EU resolutions recognizing
the Armenian genocide and demanding that Turkey must recognize and
condemn it.

‘We shall not be able to withstand future challenges without proper
assessment of the past crimes,” he said.