news24, UK
April 24 2010
Armenia marks ‘genocide’
2010-04-24 22:32
Yerevan – Hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday marked the 95th
anniversary of the mass slaughter of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, just
days after Armenia halted a historic reconciliation deal with Turkey.
The 1915 murders of hundreds of thousands of Armenians has become an
insurmountable obstacle for relations between the two countries.
Armenia insists that Turkey recognise the slaughter as genocide.
On Saturday Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan laid flowers at a
memorial for the victims in the capital Yerevan and thanked those
countries which supported "our struggle for justice".
The slaughter and "annihilation of an ancient culture" was a
deliberate policy of the Ottoman Turk government, Sargsyan said. "The
instigators of this appalling crime expected that those who survived
would lose their national identity, scattering across the globe," he
continued.
The Armenian parliament unexpectedly halted the ratification process
of normalisation accords signed with Turkey in October 2009. The
accords were expected to restore diplomatic relations between the two
countries.
Sore point
But the protocols were still awaiting ratification by the parliaments
in Ankara and Yerevan, each side accusing the other of adding new
conditions after the agreement was struck.
Armenia said that Turkey was delaying its ratification of the accords,
rendering its own ratification process "pointless".
The killings have also remained a sore point between the two sides as
international debate continues about their definition as genocide.
Armenia traditionally commemorates the murders on April 24, the day
when the execution of intellectuals began.
Estimates of the number of those killed range from between 200 000 and
1.5 million.
Turkey has always denied that the killings constituted genocide,
arguing that the Armenians had sided with the Russians against the
Turks in the First World War.
– SAPA
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