A senior Russian official has reaffirmed President Vladimir Putin’s decision to participate in the April 24 official ceremonies in Yerevan that will mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
“We will be mourning with Armenians on that day,” Leonid Slutsky, the pro-government chairman of a Russian State Duma state, said during a visit to Armenia. “We will be calling on the entire conscious world to mourn that pain together with us.”
“And we will be urging those who have not acknowledged and condemned that terrible crime against humanity to also do that,” added Slutsky.
Putin’s decision to fly to Yerevan for the commemorations of the Armenian genocide centenary was announced after his March 12 phone call with President Serzh Sarkisian. The latter has also invited dozens of other world leaders to the ceremonies. French President Francois Hollande has accepted the invitation.
Russia and France are among about two dozen countries that have officially recognized the World War One-era slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Successive Turkish governments have strongly criticized the recognitions, saying that Armenians died in smaller numbers and not as a result of an Ottoman government effort to exterminate them.
In what may have been an attempt to prevent Putin’s April 24 visit to the genocide memorial in the Armenian capital, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned his Russian counterpart and discussed the genocide issue with him on March 17. Erdogan told Putin that the issue should be tackled from a “fair perspective.”
Apparently hoping to deflect international attention from the upcoming Armenian commemorations, Erdogan’s government has scheduled this year’s annual remembrance of a Turkish victory in a First World War battle for April 24. It has invited over 100 world leaders to the celebration.
In a weekend interview with the France 24 TV channel, Erdogan denied any ulterior motives behind that timing. “There is no connection with the events planned by Armenia. On the contrary, it’s the Armenian side that timed its events to coincide with our dates,” he charged.