The Armenian genocide is one of the darkest pages of world history, which has left a traumatic imprint on the collective memory of the Armenian people, but also of all peoples who were confronted with the atrocities of Turkey, Speaker of the Parliament Anita Demetriou said before the plenary session on Thursday, in a report on the occasion of April 24, the World Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide by the Young Turks.
Demetriou said that Turkey, with the tolerance of the international community, committed genocide against other populations, without to date having recognized the Armenian genocide or apologized for the policies of ethnic cleansing and expansionism that it unrepentantly continues. It stated that the genocide began in 1915 and one and a half million innocent people were massacred and hundreds of thousands were brutally abused, forcibly displaced or enslaved as part of an organised and premeditated plan to exterminate the Armenian nation.
He noted that Cyprus was the first country in Europe to recognize the genocide by establishing, by a unanimous resolution of the House of Representatives in 1990, 24 April as the National Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.
"Today, as the House of Representatives, we condemn for the umpteenth time this heinous event and at the same time we express our solidarity with the friendly Armenian people, while appealing to the international community for universal recognition of the Armenian genocide," he said.
Cyprus and Armenia are fighting for their rights, says Makhteshian
Vartkes Makhteshian, a representative of the Armenian religious group, said that alongside the physical extermination of the "Giauri" Armenians, the Turks committed cultural genocide in order to eliminate the long-standing Armenian presence in Asia Minor, Pontus, Western Armenia and Cilicia, where between 1894 and 1923, a total of 450 monasteries, 1.950 schools and 2,430 churches were snatched and destroyed or changed use, while the names of some 4,000 towns and villages were deserted.
He said that 800.000 surviving refugees scattered across the globe, forming the Armenian Diaspora and forging a new life, contributing to the commerce, sports, scouting, sciences, arts and culture of their foster homes.
He mentioned that Cyprus opened its arms wide and welcomed more than 9,000 Armenian refugees who arrived in Larnaca and its other ports and that 1.300 who eventually remained, managed to get back on their feet and continue the good name that Armenians have always had on our island for centuries.
Mr. Mahtesyan noted that Cyprus has always been a constant supporter of Armenians and Armenia and that Armenians and Cypriots are fighting for justice and are sailing in the same boat with Ukraine and other countries that have great powers against them.
Mr. Mahtesyan noted that Cyprus has always been a constant supporter of Armenians and Armenia and that Armenians and Cypriots are fighting for justice and are sailing in the same boat with Ukraine and other countries that have great powers against them.
"Unfortunately, the powerful of the Earth have always been content with statements of condemnation, leaving the weak at the mercy of the invader's appetites and eternal victims of their interests. The global mobilisation of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine is astonishing, while public opinion has been indifferent to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and more recently, the violations of the buffer zone in Cyprus and the violation of the status quo in Famagusta by the Turks, the war in Artsakh and the ongoing violation of Armenia's borders by the Azeris," he noted.
Finally, he called on the international community to stop pretending to act on the basis of economic and geostrategic interests and to assume the role of the guardian of international law, putting words into practice, as the poet Homer wrote in the Iliad.
Source: CNA
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