PRESENCE OF TURKISH PEACEKEEPERS IN SOUTH OF LEBANON IS MORALLY UNACCEPTABLE, CATHOLICOS ARAM I SAYS
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Aug 30 2006
ANTELIAS, LEBANON, AUGUST 30, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Expressing
the concern of the Armenian community of Lebanon in a letter
addressed to Mr. Kofi Annan, the General Secretary of the United
Nations, His Holiness Aram I, the Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia,
strongly questiond the presence of Turkish forces as part of the UN
peacekeepers in south of Lebanon. "How can a state play a peacekeeping
role when the culture of massacre and the ruthless killing of innocent
women and children are part of its political culture? How can a nation
that denies its illegitimate occupation of one part of Cyprus come to
defend the land and the people of Lebanon?", Catholicos Aram I said,
in particular. His Holiness considers the Turkish participation in a
peacekeeping mission "morally unacceptable". His Holiness has reminded
the General Secretary that the Armenian community, which was settled
in Lebanon after the Armenian Genocide in 1915, will never accept
"the eligibility of the army of a country that has a profoundly
negative record on implementing justice and human rights".