National Post , Canada
April 25, 2005 Monday
National Edition
Thousands of Armenians remember 1.5 million dead
YEREVAN – Hundreds of thousands of people clutching tulips,
carnations and daffodils climbed a hill in Armenia’s capital
yesterday 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 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 from Europe and the United States to
remember friends and relatives who had died between 1915 and 1923.
Armenia wants Turkey and the world to admit that what happened was
genocide. Turkey denies this, saying Armenians were among many
victims of a partisan war that also claimed many Muslims.