Armenia decries crimes against ‘civilization’ on genocide anniversary

The genocide is a "crime not only against our ethnic identity, but also against human civilization," Pashinyan said in a message after laying flowers at a genocide memorial in the capital Yerevan.

Commemorative events were scaled back this year due to the coronavirus restrictions imposed throughout the country, and the Yerevan memorial was closed to the public.

In a short video address at the memorial, Pashinyan said that after more than a century, "the consequences of the genocide have not been eliminated."

"Turkey has not yet apologised for what it did," he said, adding that Yerevan "demands" that Ankara officially recognize the massacres as genocide.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart during the First World War in what amounted to genocide, a claim supported by some 30 countries.

Turkey fiercely rejects the genocide label, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

Yerevan has long demanded Ankara provide financial compensation and restore property rights to the descendants of those killed in the 1915-1918 massacres, which Armenians call Meds Yeghern or the Great Crime.

Pashinyan said Armenians "are still facing the challenges posed to our people at the outset of the twentieth century."

He said that instead of visiting the memorial, Armenians worldwide will be able to send their names to a mobile number to have them displayed on the pillars of the memorial until dawn.