ArmInfo. In anticipation of the events dedicated to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, held by the Union of Armenians of Russia, the UAR placed thematic banners all over Moscow, recalling one of the most brutal crimes of the 20th century. This was reported by the press service of the UAR.
110 years ago, Ottoman Turkey exterminated 1.5 million Armenians living in the country at that time, the same number of people scattered around the world fleeing the genocide. Thousands of Armenian manuscripts, hundreds of historical and architectural monuments were destroyed, more than 60 Armenian cities and 2.5 thousand villages were burned.
On April 24, 1965, demonstrations were organized in Soviet Armenia demanding recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Thus, the wall of silence created around this issue was destroyed. In 2015, the Armenian Apostolic Church canonized the victims of the Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide has been recognized and condemned by many countries and influential international organizations. The first to officially condemn the mass killings of Armenians was the Parliament of Uruguay (1965). The extermination of Armenians was officially recognized as genocide (according to international law[177]) and also condemned by France (1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2012, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland - National Council (lower house of parliament), Sweden, Russia (1995), Poland, Lebanon (2000), Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, Argentina (2 laws, 5 resolutions), Venezuela, Chile, Canada (1996, 2002, 2004), Vatican, Bolivia (2014), Austria (2015), Luxembourg (2015), Brazil (2015), Paraguay (2015), Germany (2016), Czech Republic (2017), Portugal (2019), USA (2019), Latvia.
The Armenian Genocide has been recognized by the European Parliament (1987, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2015), the South American Parliamentary Coalition (Mercosur), the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, and the Latin American Parliament (2015). Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not officially a prerequisite for Turkey's accession to the EU, but some authors believe that Turkey will have to do so on its way to EU membership.
The Turkish Republic spends significant funds on PR campaigns to deny it and donates to universities that ensure the credibility of the Turkish position. Whenever the recognition of the genocide is discussed by parliaments or governments of different countries, Turkey threatens them with diplomatic and trade sanctions and reprisals against its own minorities. In order to erase traces of the physical presence of Armenians on Turkish territory, Armenian architectural monuments are systematically destroyed in the country.
The arguments of the deniers are usually modifications of one of the following statements: there was never a mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire; the deaths of Armenians occurred through carelessness from hunger and disease during expulsion from the war zone; there was no deliberate policy on the part of the Young Turks to exterminate Armenians; the deaths of Armenians were a consequence of the civil war in the Ottoman Empire, as a result of which many Turks also died.