TODAY SWEDISH PARLIAMENT VOTES ON RECOGNITION OF GENOCIDES IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.03.2010 14:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today the Parliament of Sweden will vote the
recognition the Armenian Genocide , the genocides of Assyrians and
Pontic Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The
opposition opposes the recognition.

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Carl Bildt is also against
the Armenian Genocide recognition, because, in his opinion, it would
spoil relations with Turkey. Bildt also advocates for Turkey’s EU bid.

According to a number of Swedish media, one tempts to assume that
the foreign policy of Sweden is designed in Ankara. "The Swedish
Parliament, like the parliaments of other EU countries, must recognize
the atrocities against Christians in the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey,
in 1915 as genocide. It is about respecting the rights of minorities
and peoples, the right to practice their own religion, it is about
the most basic – human rights," Swedish newspapers wrote.

Sweden has become home for thousands of Armenians, Syrians, Assyrians
and Greeks, who are descendants of massacres’ victims and survivors.

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 led 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