'People still waiting for justice', says Ambassador Babakhanian on Armenian genocide
Apr 25, 2022
New Delhi [India], April 25 : More than a century has passed, but people who lost their lives in the Armenian genocide, are still waiting for justice, said Armenian ambassador to India Yuri Babakhanian on the 107th anniversary commemorating the harrowing piece of history.
Armenian ambassador to India made these remarks at the book launch of the "Armenian Genocide, The Sin of Ottoman Empire".
"...More than a century has passed since the Armenian Genocide, the deprivation of the Armenian people of their homeland and property. However, the entire Armenian people are still waiting for justice because the crime of genocide cannot have a statute of limitations," he said.
Ambassador Babakhanian stressed that if the first genocide of the 20th century had been recognized and condemned in a timely manner there would have been no subsequent genocide at all.
He lamented that the genocide is a terrible tragedy for the Armenian people as a result of which they lost most of their historical homeland and about half of the population.
"It is also the history of survival and struggle," he said, adding "It was a fight in the name of life, struggle to preserve identity, struggle not to lose the memory of the nation, and the right and the opportunity to pass it on to the next generations."
Babakhanian continued by saying that during the past century, the Armenian people as the subject of the tragedy, raise this problem in various forms and focus the attention of the international community and the Turkish authorities.
According to the Armenian envoy, the issue of recognition that the Armenians raise before the international community and Turkey has several components and that is why Armenia constantly speaks from the rostrum of the United Nation, with an appeal to unite the efforts of all countries to prevent the "crime of genocide".
He noted that the mass extermination of Armenians in accordance with international law was officially recognized as genocide and condemned by many countries.
As of 2022, governments and Parliament have 33 countries, including the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Uruguay and Brazil, formally recognized the Armenian Genocide.
The European Parliament has been trying for many years to pursue a Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide, Babakhanian said.
He said the bloc adopted a resolution proclaiming April 24, 2015, in the EU as the day of remembrance of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, and also addressed Ankara with the corresponding appeal. Turkey in response warned that such calls could lead to a deterioration in relations with the European Union, he added.
Turkey and Azerbaijan are the only nations in the world actively denying the Armenian Genocide.
"We cannot accept such position of the successive governments of Turkey which have avoided and are still avoiding the recognition of the genocide, promoting the policy of denial at the state level," Babakhanian added.
Some 1.5 million Armenians were estimated to have been killed during the course of the First World War. Rights experts believe it was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity.
Separately, Ambassador of India to Armenia KD Dewal paid homage to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims.
"Ambassador KD Dewal paid homage to martyrs of this great tragedy and placed a wreath at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial," India in Armenia said in a tweet.
