Despite the passage of 105 years images of the Armenian genocide are still imprinted in the minds and hearts of the world peoples

Although more than 105 years have passed since the Ottomans committed the Armenian genocide, the repercussions of this genocide are still being heard today in all parts of the world. This genocide is one of the ugliest forms of violations against all humanity. Strangely enough, it is repeated today by the Erdogan regime against the peoples and countries of our region, following in the footsteps of the defunct Ottoman Sultanate.

Head of the Syrian-Armenian Friendship Association, Dr. Nora Areesian said, “The Armenian genocide’s images are still engraved in the minds and hearts of the peoples of the world, especially in the national memory of the Armenian people,” adding, “The memorial of the mass killing of Armenians is classified in international law as a genocide.”
The Armenian genocide has left a grave impact on Armenians, perhaps the worst of which is depriving them of their homeland and property,and displacing them in all parts of the world. Therefore, on this memorial the Armenians are fully determined to re-claim their rights, according to Dr. Areesian. She indicated that the most substantial for Armenians is to criminalize Turkey over this genocide and compensate the rights of Armenians.

Areesian noted Syria’s recognition of the Armenian genocide through the People’s Assembly on February 13th this current year. She stressed that the condemnation of the genocide by dozens countries opens the path todemanding Armenian historical rights, recognizing the genocide and removing its results, noting that achieving justice for the Armenian people is among the most important national principles for promoting values and rights in the world.
Areesian also mentioned the Syrian people’s embrace of Armenians. Despite the Syrians’suffering from Turkification for centuries, they were the first to embrace and welcome the Armenians who survived the brutality of the genocide, directly ordered by the Ottomans. Areesian indicated that the Turkish policy is stilladopting the same approach of crime, assault, killing and terrorism against the Syrian people!
Areesian went on to say that it was phenomenal how the Syrians embraced the Armenians across all the Syrian geography which was truly reflected in the Syrian press and literary writings of Syrian intellectuals back then. She clarified that the surviving Armenians who settled in Syria, and also their grandsons, have expressed their true nature through affiliation and loyalty to Syria, fully engaging in the Syrian social life and leaving their mark in the political, cultural and economic spheres.
Member of the People’s Assembly Jansett Kazan said, for her part, that the crime,committed by the Ottomans against the peoples of the region, the most heinous of which was the Armenian genocide, has been repeated throughout history against several other ethnicities. One recalls the Ottoman’s crime in the Caucasus region when citizens were forcibly displaced to Turkey, including the Circassians. In fact, the worst forms of torture were practiced against them, especially when transported by steamships and thrown alive in the Black Sea, to the extent that the Obakh ethnicity had been completely annihilated.
Kazan continued saying, “The crimes of extermination, committed by the Ottomans,were met by a widespread popular rejection from the peoples of the region, especially in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and was embodied the region’s peoples’ embrace of the Armenians, Circassians and other ethnicities as well. Notably, the displaced ethnicities were enjoyingtheir full rights, at a time the Ottomans wereforcing Turkification on the displaced ethnicities that settled in Turkey, with the aim of changing the nature of things and wiping out the terrible memory of genocide from the minds.
Kazan concluded that the Ottoman occupation that forcibly ruled the Arab countries had not been able to undermine the Syrians’ adherence to their identity, land, and language, noting that the authoritarian regime of Erdogan has been relentlessly trying, for nearly nine years, to occupy northern Syria but has failed to confront the Syrian Arab Army, which has foiled Turkey’s plans and greedy ambitions.

Rayan Faouri