ARMENIAN LEADER ON "GENOCIDE" RECOGNITION, KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

Public Television of Armenia
April 7 2009

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has said that the recognition as
genocide of the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in the early
1900s is about justice. In an interview with German sociologist Tilman
Alert, aired on Armenian Public TV on 7 April, Sargsyan said that the
day when the Turkish president visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial
would be "one of the happiest moments" in his life.

"I don’t think that a Turkish president may pay a visit to the
Genocide Memorial in the visible future," Sargsyan said. "If
something like that happens, it would be one of the happiest moments
in my life because no Armenian doubts the fact of the genocide. For
Armenians, the recognition of the genocide is not an end in itself;
nor do Armenians want an additional confirmation of the fact of the
genocide. The recognition is more about preventing things; it is more
related to justice."

Speaking about the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict settlement and
developments, Sargsyan, who himself comes from this breakaway
Azerbaijani region, said he would be glad to resign from politics
if the Karabakh conflict was settled. "The happiest day in my life
would be the day when Azerbaijan recognizes the self-determination
right of Nagornyy Karabakh, and Nagornyy Karabakh is declared either
an independent state or unites with Armenia, and I resign," he said.

The rest of the interview was about Sargsyan’s life, with almost no
political statements. Speaking about his early years, Sargsyan said
he had planned to become a historian when in school but then decided
to study the Armenian language and literature so enrolled in Yerevan
State University. Sargsyan spoke about his background, family, brothers
and other relatives. He said that while being a senior member of the
Communist Party in Nagornyy Karabakh in the late 1980s, he chose to
join the popular movement in 1988 when the Karabakh people rose to
cede from Azerbaijan.