Armenia, on Day of Rain and Sorrow, Observes 100th Anniversary of Genocide
APRIL 24, 2015
YEREVAN, Armenia — With the legacy of the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 still a source of bitter enmity and political disputes in Asia Minor and beyond,Armenia on Friday recognized the 100th anniversary of what historians and a growing number of world leaders have called the first genocide of the 20th century.
On an ashen gray day in the capital, Yerevan, punctuated by driving rain, Armenian officials and dignitaries gathered at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex — the country’s main monument to the roughly 1.5 million people killed — where they were joined by international delegations that included President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President FranÇois Hollande of France.
The complex includes an eternal flame, which was ringed by multicolored flowers, and a 144-foot-tall granite stele, split by a crevice as a symbol of the losses of the Armenian people. As Mr. Hollande arrived and walked toward the soaring stone spike, he paused to shake hands solemnly with President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, then placed a yellow rose into a memorial wreath. Mr. Putin followed in similar fashion, pumping Mr. Sargsyan’s hand heartily.
Mr. Sargsyan, in his opening remarks, described the killing of Armenians as “unprecedented in terms of volume and ramifications” at that point in history.
“The western part of the Armenian people, who for millenniums had lived in their homeland, in the cradle of their civilization, were displaced and annihilated under a state-devised plan,” Mr. Sargsyan said, “with direct participation of the army, police, other state institutions, and gangs comprising criminals released from the prisons specifically for this purpose.”
“Around 1.5 million human beings were slaughtered merely for being Armenian,” he said.
Turkey, a NATO ally, still fiercely denies that the killings and forced exiles that began in 1915 and created what is now one of the world’s largest diasporas amounted to genocide. It is a position so vital to Turkey that it is widely understood that countries adopting that term risk putting their relations with the country in jeopardy. Some world leaders, including President Obama, pointedly declined to use the word genocide in expressing their condolences.
In appointing the secretary of the Treasury, Jacob J. Lew, to lead the American delegation to Yerevan, the White House referred to the ceremony as the “Centennial Commemoration of the Events of 1915” — euphemistic enough perhaps to satisfy President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, but a grave disappointment to Armenians who had hoped Mr. Obama would make good on his promise as a presidential candidate to recognize the killings as genocide.
In a statement on Friday, Mr. Obama called the killings of Armenians “the first mass atrocity of the 20th century,” adding that “the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire were deported, massacred and marched to their deaths.”
He also suggested that the absence of the word genocide in his statement was an official position, but not a reflection of his own personal beliefs. “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed,” Mr. Obama said.
By now, with the facts well established, it is largely a semantic debate that Turkey seems to be losing. Pope Francis, for instance, this year called the killings of Armenians the “first genocide of the 20th century.” Even some people in Turkey have called for recognition and reconciliation given the increasingly settled world opinion.
Still, in an apparent bid to distract from the centennial events in Yerevan and around the world, Turkey brought forward by one day an annual commemoration of the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I, normally held on April 25. The battle is of particular significance to Australia and New Zealand, which lost many soldiers there.
The dueling commemorations presented a challenge for some countries with close ties to Turkey and Armenia, particularly Russia, which decided to send Mr. Putin to Yerevan and Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the lower house of Parliament, to Turkey.
Russia is Armenia’s closest ally, providing crucial economic and military support, including border security. At the same time, Russia is relying on Turkey for the construction of a major new natural gas pipeline that would potentially allow Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant, to bypass Ukraine in supplying gas to customers in Europe.
Despite Turkey’s strategic importance, Mr. Putin’s decision to go to Yerevan was a signal to many that ultimately Russia’s allegiances lie with Armenia, which, like Russia, is a predominantly Orthodox Christian nation.
“We sincerely sympathize with the Armenian people who suffered one of the most awful tragedies in the history of mankind,” Mr. Putin said in his speech.
Beyond the fight over the term genocide, the enmity between Turkey and Armenia still weighs heavily in both countries and is a major factor in regional politics.
The border between the two nations is sealed, and Armenia remains officially at war with its other Turkic Muslim neighbor, Azerbaijan, over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
It was hardly a surprise that the first leader to speak after Mr. Sargsyan at the commemoration in Yerevan was Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus, which is also in a decades-long dispute with Turkey over northern Cyprus. Only Turkey recognizes northern Cyprus as an independent nation.
Mr. Anastasiades, in his speech, called for universal recognition of the Armenian genocide. “It is indeed high time to recognize historical facts,” he said, “as this would pave the way to normalizing relations between neighboring countries and would undoubtedly contribute to world peace.”
Mr. Anastasiades added, “We are here to honor the resilience of the Armenian people.”
Mr. Hollande, in his remarks, denounced the repression of ethnic minorities, and condemned religiously motivated killings anywhere in the world.
“Recognition of the Armenian genocide is an act of peace,” he said.
Thomas de Waal, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, and author of a new book, “Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide,” said that Armenia and Turkey each suffered from the continuing feud over the killings of 1915.
“If ever there was unfinished historical business, this is it,” Mr. de Waal said from Washington. “Sometimes it feels Armenians and Turks are still stuck in the politics of World War I. The legacy of 1915 and the lack of closure about it means that Armenians still have this big historical trauma at the base of their national identity.”
“As for Turkey,” Mr. de Waal continued, “for all the progress it has made in the past few years, I think the Armenian genocide issue also shows they still have a lingering paranoia about the big Christian ‘great powers,’ and they take that out on the Armenians.”
He said the continuing fight with Armenia had prevented Turkey from rising as a greater regional power, particularly in the Caucasus, and had hindered Armenia in reaching any resolution with Azerbaijan in the fight over Nagorno-Karabakh, which in recent months has threatened to break out once again in open war.