Civil Georgia, Georgia
April 24 2005

Armenian Community Wants Parliament to Recognize 1915 Slaughter as
Genocide

(Tbilisi. April 24, 2003. Civil Georgia) – Couple of hundreds of
ethnic Armenians gathered today in Tbilisi to pay tribute to the
victims of the 1915 slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians in
Ottoman Turkey.

Armenian community in Georgia requested Georgian Parliament to
recognize slaughter as genocide.

Meanwhile, the issue caused disputes in Georgian Parliament today
after MP Hamlet Movsesian, representative of the Armenian community
in Georgia, requested to pay tribute to the victims of the 1915
events.

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze asked the MPs to pay
tribute not only victims of the 1915 slaughter, but also to the
victims of all the conflicts around the world including Azerbaijanis
in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Georgians and Abkhazians in the Abkhaz
conflict.

Parliamentary Chairperson’s decision and MP Hamlet Movsesian’s
requests caused protest of MPs representing Azerbaijani community in
Georgia.

The similar incident occurred in the Georgian Parliament on April 24,
2002 when MPs representing the Armenian community demanded adoption
of the resolution recognizing the 1915 slaughter as genocide.