|
PARIS, April 24 (AFP) - 21h02 - The Armenian
community in France and elsewhere in Europe held
solemn masses, marches and memorials on Sunday to
mark the 90th anniversary of mass killings by
Ottoman Turks which a growing number of countries
have recognised as a genocide.
The Parisian landmark of Notre Dame cathedral hosted
a requiem mass Sunday and many other gatherings took
place across the city.
Some 350,000 ethnic Armenians live in France.
The mass was followed by a meeting at an Armenian
monument where on Friday French President Jacques
Chirac and Armenian President Robert Kocharian
placed a wreath.
French Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande told
the gathering of 3,000, mostly Armenians, that he
would propose a law in parliament to penalize those
who deny the genocide.
"The Armenian genocide was the first of the 20th
century, but, alas, not the only one. The Armenian
cause is not only for Armenians, but for all those
who are committed to human rights and the
recognition of genocide," Hollande said.
The protesters later marched to the capital's famed
Champs Elysees avenue and the nearby Turkish
embassy.
"This is a protest march against Turkey, which
continues to reject it was a genocide," said Alain
Saboundjian, a spokesman for an Armenian group in
France.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen
perished in orchestrated killings between 1915 and
1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart. Ankara
counters that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of
Turks were killed in "civil strife" during World War
I.
Some 80,000 Armenians live in the Mediterranean port
of Marseille, where the cornerstone of an Armenian
monument due to be inaugurated next year was put in
place Sunday. The stone included written messages
from some of the region's ethnic Armenian children.
"We had to wait until 2001 for France to recognise
the Armenian genocide. How long will it be before
Turkey does?," said regional politician Michel
Vauzelles, who addressed the crowd of several
thousand gathered for the occassion.
A requiem mass and a march to a proposed site of a
genocide memorial took place in the central city of
Lyon, while a wreath was placed at a war memorial in
the northeastern city of Strasbourg.
Armenian religious and community leaders headed a
cortege of around 1,000 people in the western
Ukrainian city of Lviv carrying candles and red
carnations.
"We want Turkey and other countries who have not
already recognised the genocide to do so," said
Karapiet Bagratouni, one of 3,000 Armenians in the
city.
Greece recognised the massacres as a genocide in
1997 when it named April 24 as "The memorial day of
the genocide of Armenians by the Turkish regime" and
in Athens on Sunday a crowd of 500 including
diplomats and Greek officials placed a wreath at a
war memorial.
The row over whether or not to call the killings
genocide has embarrassed Turkey as it readies for
the start of European Union accession talks later
this year.
In Germany this week members of parliament from
across the political spectrum appealed to Turkey to
accept the massacre of Armenians as part of its
history, saying this would help its EU aspirations.
On Tuesday, Poland joined a list of 15 countries
that have officially acknowledged the killings as
genocide. Russia, the UN and the European parliament
all recognise the massacres as genocide.
AFP
Top |
® 