Aysor, Armenia
April 24 2010

Address by Armenia’s President Sargsyan to Armenian nation

On the 1915 Genocide Memorial Day, which is being marked on April 24,
the Press Office of the State Administration of Armenia has released
the Address by county’s President Serzh Sargsyan.

`Dear fellow countrymen,

Today is the April 24 Day; this day 95 years ago a monstrous and
brutal crime was committed under the state plan, a crime, which hadn’t
have a precedent not only in the history of the Armenian nation, but
in the world history as well.

By dint of its all state structures, which were acting under the
orders, the state administration of the Ottoman Turkish Empire
implemented a plan of killing of Armenians. The Armenians’
thousand-year march was divided into two pieces – before and after.

1,5 million deaths, a nation, who was expelled from its homeland, the
holocaust of the ancient culture ` these are the consequences of the
state policy, which contained the wild wish to wipe off the last
traces of Armenians.

That plan’s goal was that those, who rid of the death marches of the
Mets Eghern (Genocide), will never recover from the wounds and will
get lost between the five continents, never being again a nation and a
political force.

However, we survived as a nation, and we returned to the world stage
to declare ` we are continuing our perpetual moving and we are
strongly committed to the prevention of such kind of crimes.

We are grateful to all those in different countries, including Turkey,
who accept the importance of the prevention of the crimes against
humanity and join us in this fight. This is a process, which will
increase in the nature of things.

Dear fellow countrymen,

Today along with the entire Armenian nation I bow my head,
commemorating and mourning for the innocent victims of the 1915
Genocide.

Their behest was: live and create in the name of good, beauty, in the
name of our homeland, our national goals and in the name of the
humanity. We will never betray their memory and behest.’