ABC News, Chicago
April 25 2014
Armenian genocide during WWI commemorated in Yerevan
Friday, April 25, 2014
April 25, 2014 (YEREVAN, Armenia) — Armenians are making their annual
commemoration of the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by
Ottoman Turks, unsatisfied by an unprecedented conciliatory message by
Turkey’s premier.
The killings in 1915 are regarded by many historians as the first
genocide of the 20th century. Turkey rejects the term “genocide,” says
the death figure is inflated and that people died on both sides as the
Ottoman Empire collapsed amid World War I.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called the
events “our shared pain” and acknowledged that the deportation of
Armenians had “inhumane consequences.”
But amid commemoration ceremonies in the Armenian capital on Thursday,
presidential chief of staff Vigen Sargsian said Erdogan’s message
consisted of “the known theses of Turkish propaganda, putting victims
and executioners on the same plane.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
