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.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS