RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE – IN UNITED STATES’ INTERESTS

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.01.2010 17:53 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ U.S. Administration will be sadly mistaken in case
of deciding to undermine Armenian organizations’ efforts towards
achieving recognition of Armenian Genocide, NAS Oriental Studies
Institute Director Ruben Safrastyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

In February 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet
with representatives of Armenian- American organizations to conduct
consultations over RA-Turkish Protocols. Meeting will bring together
representatives from Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), Armenian
General Benevolent Union (AGBU), Eastern and Western Prelacies
of Armenian Apostolic Church in United States, Knights of Vardan
organization and Armenian National Congress of America (ANCA).

The Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) was founded in 1972. It aims
to strengthen U.S. Armenia and U.S./Nagorno Karabakh relations,
promotes Armenia’s and Karabakh’s democratic development and economic
prosperity and seeks universal affirmation of the Armenian Genocide"
via "research, education and advocacy.

The protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the common border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich
by Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish
counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of
diplomatic talks held through Swiss mediation.

The Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire (1915-23) was the 21st
century’s first genocide characterised by the use of massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead
to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths
generally held to have been between one and one-and-a-half million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.

Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of
food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were
indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse
commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case
of genocide after the Holocaust.

The Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire,
denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In
recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as
genocide.

To date, twenty countries have officially recognized the events of
the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians
accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also recognized by
influential authoritative media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post, The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian diaspora communities were founded as a result
of Genocide.