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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS