FM Mnatsakanyan: We consider ourselves victors

Panorama.am - 06/04

“We consider ourselves victors because we were supposed to be wiped out of the face of this Earth. But today we are confident people, proud and strong about their identity, their history and their civilization with thriving communities all over the world, a nation state, a country,” Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has stated in an interview to the Rwandese media representatives

Responding to a question about the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the minister reminded that the legal term genocide was developed by Raphael Lemkin, the international community adopted the convention on genocide in 1948 and the Armenian genocide very much the source of examination of why and how these things can happen.

In the minister’s words, the denial to recognize genocide, denialism is very painful and haunts generations. “ We fail to recognize the damage of the generations when justice is denied. There are over five generations now who are the survivors or the descendants of the survivors. We have seen the depth of the calamity that genocide brings. It happened to the Armenians, followed by Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide,” said the minister, adding “Everytime we stand in the international community and say "never again", but it is not enough. We ask ourselves the question: are we serious, is it enough, have we been paying attention to the signs of genocidal tendencies which can be detected early. Have we been acting early to prevent, or we just let it go to face the calamity.”

Source Panorama.am