RA President Serzh Sargsyan made a statement at the 69th Session of the UN General Assembly. “We conduct this meeting in a symbolically significant period between the centennial of World War I and the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the two turning points in the history of humanity”, states the President in his opening remarks. Afterwards he referred to the particular significance of the year of 2015 for Armenians all over the world – the centennial of the Armenian Genocide. “For a whole century now Armenians around the globe as well as the entire progressive international community expects Turkey to demonstrate the courage and face its own history by recognizing the Armenian Genocide, thus relieving next generations of this heavy burden of the past. Alas instead, we continue to hear ambiguous and ulterior messages, in which the victim and the slaughterer are equalized, and the history is falsified.
Armenia has never conditioned the normalization of the bilateral relations with Turkey by recognition of the Armenian Genocide. In fact, Armenia was the party that initiated such a process which culminated in the signing of the Zurich Protocols in 2009. However, those Protocols have been shelved for years now awaiting ratification in the Turkish Parliament. Ankara declares publicly that it will ratify those Protocols only if Armenians cede Nagorno- Karabakh, the free Artsakh, to Azerbaijan. In Armenia and Artsakh ordinary people often just retort to such preconditions: “To hell with you ratification.” This vernacular phrase concentrates the age-old struggle of the entire nation, and it unequivocally explains to those who attempt to bargain the others’ homeland that the motherland is sacrosanct, and they had better stay away from us with their bargain. It is in these circumstances that currently the official Yerevan is seriously considering the issue of recalling the Armenian-Turkish Protocols from the parliament”, states the President.
Referring to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group, the President says “Azerbaijani authorities have failed to implement the fundamental demands of the Security Council resolutions, including abiding and sticking by humanitarian norms. Incidentally, Azerbaijan has been gravely violating this demand every now and then. Azerbaijan’s cruel and inhumane treatment of the Armenian civilian prisoners of war regularly resulted in their deaths. Although, I think, one shall not be surprised about it because it is the same state that suppresses and exercises the most inhumane treatment of its own people. A clear proof of it was the decision of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to suspend its visit to Azerbaijan due to the obstructions it encountered in the conduct of the official Baku”.
The full speech is available at the official website of the RA President.
Photo by president.am.
