Armenia yesterday marked the centenary of a mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks with a simple flower-laying ceremony attended by foreign leaders, as Germany became the latest country to respond to its calls for recognition that it was genocide.
Turkey denies the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in what is now Turkey in 1915, at the height of World War I, constitutes genocide and relations with Armenia are still blighted by the dispute.
The parliament of Germany, Turkey’s biggest trade partner in the EU, risked a diplomatic rupture with Ankara and upsetting its own many ethnic Turkish residents by joining the many Western academics and two dozen countries to use the word.
Photo: AFP
Its resolution, approved overwhelmingly, marks a significant change of stance in a country that has worked hard to come to terms with its responsibility for the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said he “shared the pain” of Armenians, but as recently as Thursday he again refuted the description of the killings as genocide and has shown no sign of changing his mind.
French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin were among guests who each placed a yellow carnation in a wreath of forget-me-nots at a hilltop memorial near the Armenian capital, Yerevan, and led calls for reconciliation.
“Recognition of the genocide is a triumph of human conscience and justice over intolerance and hatred,” Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan said in speech under gray skies, with many guests wrapped in coats or blankets.
In a speech at the ceremony that was met by warm applause, Hollande said a law adopted by France in 2001 on recognition of the killings as genocide was “an act of truth.”
“France fights against revisionism and destruction of evidence, because denial amounts to repeat of massacres,” he said, describing his own attendance as “a contribution to reconciliation.”
Putin said that neo-fascism and nationalism were on the rise in the world, terminology he uses to describe what Russia regards as radical elements in Ukraine, whose forces are trying to put down a rebellion by pro-Russian separatists in the east.
“But remembering the tragic events of the past years we must be optimistic about our future and believe in the ideals of friendship ... and mutual support,” he said.
The European Parliament also refers to the killing in 1915 as genocide, as did Pope Francis this month, prompting Turkey to summon the Vatican’s envoy and recall its own.
Other countries, including the US, have refrained from doing so.
Predominantly Muslim Turkey, which has no diplomatic ties with Armenia, says many Christian Armenians were killed in partisan fighting during the war, but denies it amounted to genocide. It says there was no organized campaign to wipe out Armenians and no evidence of any such orders from the Ottoman authorities.
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