Remembering the sad but real events of the Armenian Genocide is not out of hatred, hostility or obsession, but is a moral obligation, since humanity can learn lessons and prevent their repetition, said on Thursday the Representative of the Armenian Community in the House of Representatives, Vartkes Mahdessian, in his address before the plenary session of the House of Representatives on Thursday which marked the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
He said that 2024 will mark 109 years since the start of the Armenian Genocide, the first major genocide of the turbulent 20th century, adding that on April 24, 1915, 250 Armenian intellectuals of Constantinople were imprisoned, while a wave of arrests, massacres and deportations of Armenians rapidly took place over a vast area of one million square kilometres in the Ottoman Empire.
He added that these events were not a bolt from the blue, as in the period 1894-1896 Sultan Abdul Hamid had ordered the death of some 300,000 Armenians, while later, in 1909, he order
ed the massacre of 30,000 Armenians in Adana.
“Unfortunately, nowadays Turkey has set up a new axis of evil together with Azerbaijan, with a barrage of attacks and other expansionist actions against the neighbouring states of Cyprus, Armenia, Greece, Syria and Iraq. The culmination of all these hostilities was the occupation, in September 2023, of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), resulting in the displacement of more than 100,000 Armenian residents, with a history going back some 2,500 years,” he stressed.
Mahdessian expressed his sincere gratitude to Cypriots, noting that Cyprus was one of the first new homelands of the genocide refugees, including his family.
He added that Cyprus was the first country in Europe and the second in the world to recognize the Armenian Genocide, through the House of Representatives in 1975, while in 2015 it criminalized its denial, adding that Cyprus has always supported the Armenians and described its geostrategic cooperation with Armenia as invaluable.
Source: Cyprus News Agen
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