Armenians remember Turkish killings 90 years ago

24 Apr 2005 11:06:58 GMT
Reuters

By Hasmik Lazarian

YEREVAN, April 24 (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of people
clutching tulips, carnations and daffodils climbed a hill in Armenia’s
capital on Sunday to lay wreaths and remember the 1.5 million they say
were killed 90 years ago in Ottoman Turkey.

>From the top the crowds could see the heights of Mount Ararat now in
eastern Turkey, the region where Armenia says its people were
slaughtered in a deliberate genocide during the chaos surrounding the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

The mountain is a potent symbol for the Christian nation but it lies
out of reach across a fortified frontier.

Local families mixed with members of Armenia’s diaspora, who had flown
from Europe and the United States to remember friends and relatives
who had died between 1915 and 1923.

“I am happy that I, my husband and my two sons are here in Yerevan
today. A large part of my husband’s family died in the genocide,” said
Rubina Peroomian, a 66-year-old teacher from Los Angeles.

Armenia wants the world — and Turkey — to admit that what happened
was genocide. Turkey denies this, saying Armenians were among many
victims of a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish lives.

Turkey’s Oct. 3 start date for European Union entry talks has
ratcheted the argument up the political agenda. France in particular,
home to an influential, 400,000-strong Armenian community, has
promised to seek a Turkish admission of genocide.

TORCHES

In Istanbul, a 30-year-old Turkish engineer Bulent Aktug said: “I
think it is wrong to describe what happened in 1915 as a
genocide. There was a lot of killing by both sides at that time.”

The commemorations in Yerevan began on Saturday night when thousands
of people held a torchlight vigil at the hill-top memorial, a granite
obelisk where a flame has burned since 1965.

The organisers have said they expect 1.5 million people, equivalent to
half the ex-Soviet republic’s population, to join Sunday’s
demonstrations.

“Today we bow our heads in remembrance of those who died, filled with
grief, but also in the certainty that the government of Armenia is a
guarantee of the safety and eternal nature of Armenians,” said a
statement from Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, who laid a wreath
on Sunday morning.

Armenia believes a Turkish admission of genocide is important not only
from a moral point of view but also to guarantee regional security.

The two states have no diplomatic relations. Turkey shut the border in
1993 out of solidarity with Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan during its war
with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress