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“Dear colleagues, distinguished guests, participants of the forum, first of all let me welcome your presence and participation in this forum and the events dedicated to the Armenian Genocide Centennial.

Surely, it would be desirable that the phenomenon of genocide does not exist at all. However, unfortunately, unless there are states, in the psychology and work style of which hatred has priority towards tolerance, massacre towards the human’s most important right, life, unless in the modern world violence and execution of force do not lack in the world, unless families are ruined, we are obliged to consider the theme of genocide urgent in forming our political and moral agenda.

Dear friends, more than 100 years ago, at the end of the 19^th century, having the hatred, precisely the Armenophobia, in their soul and on their mind, the Ottoman authorities initiated a policy of the Armenians’ annihilation, expatriation and expropriation, the tragic culmination of which became the crime of 1915 in the beginning of the 20^th century, the Armenian Genocide. It was a targeted hit to the roots and fruits, sprouts and ripened harvest of the people living in their historical homeland, and the final point of it should have been the absolute annihilation of the Armenian trace not only from the geographical, but also from the historical territory. However, thanks to our gene, steadfastness, will of living and surviving, we could keep our root and not only not lose our trace, but to stand firm on the soil and live, create, remembering, demanding, never refusing the vision of the lost motherland.

Dear friends, the xenophobia of the Ottoman Empire had blackened the consciousness of the power of that time to the extent the Armenophobia outgrew to voluminous xenophobia. The volumes of the genocide expanded, reaching the other peoples, Greeks, Assyrians and others, living in their own territories, but annexed by Ottoman Turkey.

The Armenian Genocide, the first one in the 20^th century, was a crime against humanity, however, it happened in front of the same mankind that saw, and unfortunately, let it happen in front of their eyes, a mankind that until now bears the burden of the pain of genocide, not being ensured from new genocides. Along with the international responses and the increase of the frequency of the actions towards the recognition and condemnation of the fact of the Armenian Genocide we should record that the struggle against genocide phenomenon has not been effective yet by now, because the politics continues taking priority towards civilization, the political interest towards moral interest, the denialism towards repentance.

Meanwhile, the system of values to which adheres the progressive humanity and to which Turkey does not want to reach with the historical and moral burden of the past and present, does not make propaganda on violence and murder, infringement on life and motherland. The denial of genocide means a new genocide, new violence, war and casualties, means that as Hamlet in Shakespeare’s tragedy says: “Time is out of joint.” And in this case, the parliaments, indeed, have a lot of work to do to rectify all this, return the face which some of them lost 100 years ago with their silence towards the fact of the Armenian Genocide, condemn the criminal, who perpetrated the Armenian Genocide which, unfortunately, later became a criminal precedent also during the World War II, and today, it seems the mankind should have become more civilized.

Dear friends, today numerous countries have acknowledged and recognized the fact of the Armenian Genocide, and in that process it was the parliaments that played and play the main and key role. In several countries, like Switzerland, Slovakia, Greece, Cyprus, the parliaments adopted relevant legal acts criminalizing the denial of genocide which means a new level of condemnation of Genocide, struggle against Genocide, deeper perception of the fact and phenomenon of Genocide and a feeling of bigger responsibility towards the future of humanity. At the same time, it means that Turkey, as leader in denial, gradually approaches a borderline, beyond which is either the Nuremberg Trial or the repentance. In Nuremberg the trial was so fair; the verdict was so admissible, that they call the Nuremberg Trial also a verdict of history.

Whereas, only about three decades before Nuremberg and all this with which the Nazists were charged, in front of the same mankind and history, a comparably severe crime against mankind occurred, the Armenian Genocide, which by now has been expecting its fair trial. Several years ago the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in Deir ez-Zor, in the place, where in 1915 as a consequence of Genocide, scores of Armenians were deprived of their lives, voiced a question, which by now has numerous addressees: “And when and where is the Armenians’ Nuremberg?”

This question is not rhetorical, and more than ever demands an answer to the Armenian Genocide Centennial, a practical answer, an answer and repentance, first of all, from Turkey, recognition and condemnation from the international community, otherwise...

The evidence of ‘Otherwise’ was what happened in the same Deir ez-Zor, when the relics of the Saint Martyrs’ Church became witnesses of other witnesses of genocide: the Saint Martyrs’ Armenian Church was exploded. The evidence of “the Otherwise” will be the genocides which, perhaps, with considerable difference of time, followed the Armenian Genocide. If the response of Turkey is criminal silence, the silence of an accomplice, the silence of the assistant to the crime, through denilaism, then the civilized world is the world, from which Turkey still keeps itself away, has no right to keep silence, with that appearing in the role of i nvoluntary encourager of denialism.

Dear friends, I am sure that everybody is against denialism, genocides or any form of violence. Parliament is a platform, where it is possible for the politicians, the citizens who got an opportunity to represent the face of the state through elections, irrespective of their nationality and country, to freely and sincerely express what they think. Taking the advantage, I would like to thank not only especially those of my colleagues, whose countries with their immediate participation recognized and condemned the Armenian Genocide, adopted laws criminalizing the denial of Genocide, but also call on all the parliaments of the world to practically fight against the phenomenon of the genocide, criminalize its denial, with that inciting to the obligatory repentance the countries which have no will and courage to look straight to the eyes of the truth. This is the demand of time, all-human values and morality which is hung in the air for at least 100 years.

Dear colleagues, recently the Pope Francis voiced not only to the whole Christian world, but also to the whole mankind about the Armenian Genocide, in fact, specifically compiling the actions and efforts against genocides, led by the very all-human values. In his word of a crucial influence in the dignified struggle against the denial of genocide, he founded of the cathedral of justice and truth, where the repentance is a necessity for all those, who, denying the Armenian genocide, implementing propaganda of intolerance and through committing violence, put themselves out of the process of prevention of genocides.

The history of the Armenian Genocide is not only a black page in the history of our people and the whole mankind, but it is a textbook for the mankind, a textbook what has happened and what should not be, what xenophobia is, and what the consequences are from it, how the human being can be and should not be. It is a textbook in black pages, however, there are also white pages in it, which the modern humanity should fill in through struggle against genocides and denialism. Those pages should be filled in the way there are no such black books ever, should be filled in as a memory of the millions of Armenians who were massacred and expatriated 100 years ago, to the memory of Greeks and Assyrians, to the memory of the victims of Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur genocides, to the memory of human lives interrupted as a consequence of violence and intolerance, xenophobia, destroyed settlements and disrupted destinies.”