R. HAMBARTSUMIAN: RESTORATION OF SEVRES TREATY PROVISIONS SHOULD BE ONE OF ARMENIAN NATION’S GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS

Noyan Tapan
Aug 10 2006

YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, NOYAN TAPAN. The August 10 conference at the RA
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was dedicated to the issue of
returning the territories which were to belong to Armenia by the
Sevres Treaty. At the meeting called "Conference of the Armenian
National Intellectuals", it was decided to declare August 10 as
International Day of Armenian Homeland Possession (Hayrenatirutyun),
as it was exactly 86 years ago that the Sevres Treaty was signed
on that day. Historian Rafael Hambartsumian, the event’s organizer,
Chairman of the organization "National Unity Vow" and the National
Council of the Armenians of Nakhichevan, stated that "regaining the
occupied Armenian territories is an inalienable right of the Armenian
people." He also called on all the unions, parties and other bodies
of Armenia and the Diaspora "to adopt the appropriate documents,
officially joining this decision of the intellectuals.

The historian assured that announcing the Armenian nation as "Homeland
possessing" will unify everybody with the aim of solving this problem,
"because restoration of the Sevres Treaty points should be one of the
greatest achievements of our nation." To recap, by the decision of
the powers that signed the Sevres Treaty in 1920 (Armenia, Britain,
France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Czechoslovakia and Turkey), the American President Woodrow Wilson
on November 22 1920 presented to these states the border line (90
thousand sq.km) of the territories to be given by Turkey to Armenia,
after which Armenia’s territory would make about 162 thousand sq.km.

Representatives of various unions of compatriots, NGOs, cultural,
scientific and creative unions, parties and higher educational
institutions participated in the event.