Serzh Sargsyan responds to Erdogan's invitation to attend 100th anniversary of Gallipoli War on April 23-24
Serzh Sargsyan has sent a letter to President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan in response to his invitation to attend visit Centennial commemoration event dedicated to the Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey scheduled for April 24 – when the Armenians of the world together with the international community will be marking the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. The letter says in part: “Dear Mr. President, I have received your invitation to attend the events honoring memory of the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli battle. The First World War is truly one of the most terrible chapters in human history and left millions of innocent victims and distorted fates. One of the participants of Gallipoli battle was captain of the Ottoman armed forces, Armenian by origin Sargis Torosyan – an officer who dedicated his life to protection and enuring security of the Empire and was awarded by the Ottoman Empire for faithful service and acts of bravery. Meanwhile, in the same year, a wave of massacres and forced deportations that were planned and carried out by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian people did not spare even Sargis Torosyan. Among 1.5 million of Armenians who were victims of genocide, were his parents, who were brutally murdered, and his sister died in the desert of Syria. It was a result of this unprecedented massacre that Raphael Lemkin defined the term “genocide”, while impunity paved the way for Holocaust and genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia and Darfur. According to you, the Gallipoli battle, not only for Turkey but the entire world, is an example of friendly relations generated by the war, while the battlefield is a monument of peace and friendship, reminding of the bitter legacy of the war. Leaving aside the value of all the Battle of Gallipoli or the controversial role of Turkey during the First and Second World Wars, it is worth remembering that peace and friendship should be first of all based on the courage to face your own past, historical justice, as well as based on full and not selective recognition of universal memory. Alas, Turkey continues its traditional policy of denial and year after year “improves” the tools for distortion of history. The 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli for the first time this year falls on 24 April, in the case when it started on March 18, 1915 and continued till the end of January 1916. Meanwhile, the operation of the Allies started on 25 April. What purpose is pursued, if not to divert world attention from the activities marking centennial of the Armenian Genocide? Prior to initiating commemoration events, Turkey had much more important responsibility towards their people and all mankind – recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. Therefore, in your calls for world peace, I would suggest not to forget to send message to the world about the Armenian Genocide by honoring memory of one and a half million innocent victims. The duty of each of us is to pass to future generations the real, undistorted history, thereby preventing a repetition of crimes and paving the way for further rapprochement and cooperation between nations, especially neighbors. P.S. Your Excellency, a few months ago, I invited you to visit Yerevan on April 24, 2015 to honor memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide together. We have no tradition of visiting a guest without receiving a response to our own invitation”.
