MEMBERS OF SWEDISH GOVERNMENT TRY TO PREVENT ADOPTION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.03.2010 21:44 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Resolution of the Swedish Parliament on the Armenian
Genocide is an appeal to the government of the country to recognize the
Armenian Genocide. As Vahagn Avedyan, head of the Armenian Association
of Sweden told PanARMENIAN.Net, the opposition of Sweden supported
the adoption of the resolution, while government officials have tried
to block this decision. "Of course, the recognition by the Swedish
Parliament of the Armenian Genocide is an important event, but now the
question is whether the Swedish government would pursue the foreign
policy coherent to the Armenian Genocide resolution," Avedyan stressed.

The Majority of the Swedish parliament voted in favor of the Armenian
genocide resolution (131 votes in favor against 130). The resolution
describes the mass killings of Armenians and other Christian minorities
in the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey) by the end of World War I
as Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 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.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states 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 media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress