President Armen Sarkissian and Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ararat Mirzoyan during a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex in Yerevan. File photoYEREVAN, Apr 23The participants of the torchlight procession, which started from the Republic Square in Yerevan, reached the Tsitsernakaberd memorial to the victims of the Armenian genocide, RIA Novosti correspondent reports. The event is traditionally held by the Dashnaktsutyun opposition party and its youth union. Tens of thousands of people marched through the central streets of Yerevan. At the eternal flame of the Tsitsernakaberd memorial, the protesters laid flowers and left lit candles. The action was held without incident. This year, marked by the start of negotiations on the settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations, the main opposition political forces of the country are participating in the procession, opposing concessions to Turkey and Azerbaijan.
A torchlight procession was held in Yerevan on the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the GenocideIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire carried out regular persecution and persecution of Armenians. In particular, in 1915, according to a number of historians, more than 1.5 million Armenians were killed. The fact of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire has been recognized by 23 states, as well as by the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches. In 1995, the Russian State Duma adopted a resolution «On the condemnation of the genocide of the Armenian people of 1915-1922 in their historical homeland — in Western Armenia.» Turkey traditionally rejects accusations of the Armenian genocide and reacts extremely painfully to criticism from the West on this issue. Ankara insists on abandoning the term «genocide» in relation to the events of 1915, stating that both Armenians and Turks were their victims. Turkey also calls for the creation of an international commission of historians to study the archival documents available in the country in order to develop an objective approach to the events of the First World War. Ankara's main precondition for the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations was concessions on the Karabakh issue. Thus, on April 12, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated in parliament that the international community calls on Yerevan to slightly lower the bar on the status of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and also warns of the danger of non-recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. There are no diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia, the border between the two countries has been closed since 1993 at the initiative of Ankara. Difficult relations between the countries are caused by a number of circumstances, related, in particular, to Ankara's support for the Azerbaijani position on the Karabakh problem and Turkey's sharp reaction to the process of international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. On January 14, Moscow hosted the first meeting of special representatives on the normalization process between Armenia and Turkey — Deputy Chairman of the Armenian Parliament Ruben Rubinyan and former Turkish Ambassador to the United States Serdar Kilych. As the Russian Foreign Ministry reported, the parties during the talks showed their readiness to conduct a dialogue in a constructive, non-politicized manner. The next meeting took place on February 24 in the Austrian capital.
