By Harut Sassounian / Publisher, The California Courier /
www.thecaliforniacourier.com/
The Presidents of the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh
along with leaders of major Diasporan organizations issued an unprecedented
joint declaration last week, announcing the preparation of a comprehensive
dossier of “legal claims” from Turkey to restore “individual, communal and
pan-Armenian rights and legitimate interests.” The declaration does not detail the specifics of Armenian
demands, since a legal team headed by Gagik Harutyunyan, President of the
Constitutional Court of Armenia, is in the process of finalizing a thorough
analysis of Armenian claims against Turkey.
The January 29 declaration was issued during the session
of the State Commission on the Coordination of Programs Dedicated to the
Centennial of the Armenian Genocide with the participation of over 50 regional
Centennial Committees from around the world. Later that night, Pres. Serzh
Sargsyan read the full text of the declaration during a somber wreath-laying
ceremony at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex in Yerevan.
When Catholicos Aram I inquired if the declaration would
become the official policy of the Republic of Armenia, Pres. Sargsyan responded
by assuring everyone that the adopted document would guide not only Armenia’s
foreign policy, but all government officials!
Here are highlights from the Pan-Armenian Declaration:
- Condemning the genocidal acts against the Armenian
people, planned and continuously perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire and various
regimes of Turkey in 1894-1923, dispossession of the homeland, the massacres
and ethnic cleansing aimed at the extermination of the Armenian population, the
destruction of the Armenian heritage, as well as the denial of the Genocide —
all attempts to avoid responsibility, to consign to oblivion the committed
crimes and their consequences or to justify them — as a continuation of this
crime and encouragement to commit new genocides;
- Considering the 1919-1921 verdicts of the
courts-martial of the Ottoman Empire on that grave crime perpetrated “against
the law and humanity” as a legal assessment of the fact;
- Appreciating the joint declaration of the Allied Powers
on May 24, 1915, for the first time in history defining the most heinous crime
perpetrated against the Armenian people as a “crime against humanity and civilization”
and emphasizing the necessity of holding Ottoman authorities responsible, as
well as the role and significance of the Sevres Peace Treaty of 10 August 1920
and US President Woodrow Wilson’s Arbitral Award of 22 November 1920 in
overcoming the consequences of the Armenian Genocide:
- Reiterates the commitment of Armenia and the Armenian
people to continue the international struggle for the prevention of genocides,
the restoration of the rights of people subjected to genocide and the
establishment of historical justice;
- Expresses gratitude to those states and international,
religious and non-governmental organizations that had the political courage to
recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide as a heinous crime against humanity
and even today continue to undertake legal measures to that end, also
preventing the dangerous manifestations of denialism;
- Appeals to UN member states, international
organizations, and all people of good will, regardless of their ethnic origin
and religious affiliation, to unite their efforts aimed at restoring historical
justice and paying tribute to the memory of victims of the Armenian Genocide;
- Expresses the united will of Armenia and the Armenian
people to achieve worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide and
elimination of the consequences of the Genocide, preparing to this end a file
of legal claims as a point of departure in the process of restoring individual,
communal and pan-Armenian rights and legitimate interests;
- Condemns the illegal blockade of the Republic of
Armenia imposed by the Republic of Turkey, its anti-Armenian stance in
international fora and the imposition of preconditions in the normalization of
interstate relations, considering this a consequence of the continued impunity
of the Armenian Genocide, Meds Yeghern;
- Calls upon the Republic of Turkey to recognize and
condemn the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire, and to face its
own history and memory through commemorating the victims of that heinous crime
against humanity and renouncing the policy of falsification, denialsm and
banalization of this indisputable fact;
- Expresses the hope that recognition and condemnation of
the Armenian Genocide by Turkey will serve as a starting point for the
historical reconciliation of the Armenian and Turkish peoples;
- Considers the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide an important milestone in the ongoing struggle for historical justice
under the motto “I remember and I demand.”
It is noteworthy that the Pan-Armenian declaration
counters the persistent Turkish falsification that the claims against Turkey
are being advanced by the Diaspora and not the Republic of Armenia. The
unanimously adopted declaration clearly reflects that Armenians worldwide, both
in the Homeland and Diaspora, are firmly committed to pursuing their just
demands from the Republic of Turkey!
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