‘WHERE IS OUR NUREMBERG?’ ASKS SERZH SARGSYAN IN DEIR EZ-ZOR

Tert.am
17:44 ~U 24.03.10

Armenian President Serzh Sargysan, while on a three-day official visit
to Syria, issued an address while in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor.

The statement, translated and released by the RA presidential office,
reads, in part, as follows:

"Your Eminencies, "Ladies and Gentlemen,

"I am here today since I could not but be here. It is the greatest
grief of my nation that has brought me here, the grief of the first
genocide of the 20th century and the greatest disgrace of the civilized
humanity. Up to this moment, in the 21st century, the stigma of that
disgrace still remains on the foreheads of all those who have turned
the denial of the evident facts into their policy, turned it into
their bargaining chip and into their lifestyle and norm of behavior.

"In the desert of Deir ez-Zor the most monstrous acts of the
tragedy had taken place, and it is neither possible to articulate
the particulars of that tragedy in the language of human beings,
nor am I going do that since these particulars are well-known even
to those who publicly deny the veracity of the Genocide. Bereft of
home and property, bereft of children and parents, bereft of health
and the last hope, and finally bereft of the most important – their
homeland, these people were doomed to lose the last thing they had –
their life in accordance with the state orchestrated and meticulously
developed plan of extermination.

"Quite often historians and journalists soundly compare Deir ez-Zor
with Auschwitz saying that ‘Deir ez Zor is the Auschwitz of the
Armenians.’ I think that the chronology forces us to formulate the
facts in a reverse way: ‘Auschwitz is the Deir ez-Zor of the Jews.’
Only a generation later the humanity witnessed the Deir ez-Zor of
the Jews. Today, as the President of the Republic of Armenia, the
homeland of all Armenians, I am here to ask: ‘Where and when will be
held our Nuremberg?’"