CANADIAN-ARMENIAN COMMUNITY TO PROTEST AGAINST TURKEY-ARMENIA PROTOCOLS
PanARMENIAN.Net
08.10.2009 11:10 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Canadian-Armenian communities of Montreal and
Toronto will hold three protest rallies this Friday, Saturday and
Sunday to express their frustration and opposition to the signing of
"so-called" protocols that will guide the establishment and development
of relations between Turkey and Armenia, which was jointly announced
on August 31 2009 by the foreign ministers of Armenia, Turkey and
Switzerland.
The public protest in Montreal will take place on Friday October
9, 2009 at 9 PM in front of the Armenian Genocide monument in
Montreal (in the park on the corner of Avenue Henri-Bourassa and
L’Acadie). In Toronto, the Armenian community will first organize
a youth protest rally on Saturday October 10 2009 at 2 PM at Nathan
Phillips Square-Winston Churchill Statue/Speakers Corner. There will
also be a public gathering on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 2 PM at
the Armenian Youth Centre of Toronto (50 Hallcrown Place, Victoria
Park Ave. and Highway Heroes). Armenians in Canada and around the
world believe in reconciliation but they are opposing the protocols
because they encourage the denialist ambitions of Turkey and abuse
the vulnerability of the Armenian Government vis-a-vis its economic,
social and geopolitical problems.
These protocols are especially adverse to the Armenian Nation’s
inalienable rights and interests. Turkey wants to hinder the
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, by creating
historical sub-commissions to examine the events of 1915. Numerous
countries and organizations including the Canadian Parliament in
April 2004 and the Canadian Government in 2006, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) in June 1997, June 2006 and
October 2006, have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
The International Centre of Transitional Justice (ICTJ) that studied
the Armenian case requested by a similar historical sub-commission,
Turkish-Armenian Reconciliatio (TARC), has already concluded that
the events of 1915 constituted a Genocide.
Armenians also oppose other parts of the protocols which force
Armenia to accept the current borders of Turkey, thus validating the
dispossession of Western Armenia and waiving the right of the Armenian
Nation to negotiate fully over Armenian Genocide reparations. They
are also concerned that the protocols, which call for respecting and
ensuring respect for the principles of non intervention in internal
affairs of other states, territorial integrity and inviolability of
frontiers, but do not mention the equally recognised international
principle of self-determination, will jeopardize the self-determination
of the people of Nagorno-Karabagh and negotiations for a peaceful
settlement of that conflict.
The upcoming rallies in Montreal and Toronto are among a number of
public protests being held in Canada, across the world, as well as in
Armenia. Armenians around the world have organized protests against
the new wave of Turkish denialism. In Canada hundreds of Armenian Youth
gathered on Friday October 2 nd 2009 at the Armenian Community Centre
in Toronto and protested against these unfair protocols. Petitions
are being signed, and calls to redress the situation are also being
communicated to the President of Armenia, during the consultations
held this past week in cities across the world where large Armenian
communities reside.