Armenians yesterday marked the 93rd anniversary of mass killings of their compatriots under the Ottoman Empire, an event many countries have recognized as genocide despite Turkey’s angry rejection of the label.
Thousands were expected to attend ceremonies in the Armenian capital Yerevan and in other countries to commemorate the killings, which began in 1915 and lead to a mass exodus of Armenians from what is now eastern Turkey.
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and other officials were to lead a ceremony on a hilltop memorial in central Yerevan, where an eternal flame has burned since its construction in 1965, when Armenia was part of the Soviet Union.
On Wednesday night, more than 10,000 young people carrying torches and candles marched through the streets of Yerevan demanding that Turkey recognize the killings as genocide.
Some held banners reading: “Save Europe! Keep Turkey out of the EU!” and “93 years since the Armenian genocide.”
“They tell us: Forget this tragedy, move on with your life. But how can we forget? The pain of this tragedy is passed from generation to generation,” said 19-year-old Dvin Titizian, a Canadian student who was among the many from Armenia’s widespread diaspora taking part in the march. “We will continue to condemn Turkey for denying the genocide because we must believe that one day it will recognize the genocide and ask our forgiveness.”
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey rejects the killings constituted genocide, saying that 300,000 Armenians and at least an equal number of Turks were killed in civil strife from 1915 to 1917 when the Christian Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans. The dispute has been a major obstacle in relations between Turkey and Armenia, which have no diplomatic ties and whose border has remained closed for more than a decade.
It has also complicated relations between EU-aspirant Turkey and many Western countries, especially those with large ethnic Armenian communities such as the US and France.
More than 20 countries, including Belgium, Canada, Poland and Switzerland, have officially recognized the killings as genocide. In 2006, French lawmakers voted to make it a criminal offense to deny that Armenians were victims of genocide.
But many countries, including Britain and the US, refuse to use the term to describe the events, mindful of relations with Turkey. The US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s endorsement of a resolution labeling the killings as genocide last October sparked fury in Ankara, which recalled its ambassador to Washington. Under intense pressure from the White House, the authors of the bill later asked Congress not to hold a debate on the issue.
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