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President Serzh Sargsyan issued an address on the Genocide Remembrance Day.

Dear Compatriots,

Today, we bow to the memory of innocent victims. The great majority of these victims didn’t even have graves.

One of the native and most ancient peoples of the region had been exterminated on its own land or sent into forced exile.

One of the native and most ancient peoples of the region as a result of the first Genocide of the 20th century lost its spiritual and cultural assets accumulated through the millennia, which being national – Armenian, as the pieces of art and momentous achievements had also had the universal value.

Because of the Genocide, one of the native and most ancient peoples of the region had also lost material assets accumulated through the millennia which had been appropriated by the Turkish state and its peoples.

Because of the Genocide, one of the native and most ancient peoples of the region had lost its right and opportunity to live in its homeland.

Dear Compatriots,

It is our duty to realize and to bring the attention of the international community to the fact that denial of the Genocide constitutes direct continuation of that very crime and that very crime is being carried out in modern Turkey.

Some are trying to persuade us “not to re-open the hundred years old wounds but to look forward.” Our response to this counsel is the following: Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink were not brought to trial a hundred years ago. They were tried right before our eyes. For the Armenian, as well as for the Turkish society this problem is current and urgent.

Dear Compatriots,

Each April 24th is the opportunity to renew our pledge to be loyal to the Armenian statehood whose existence precludes and will continue to preclude the repetition of the Armenian Genocide. And we, as a state and as a nation, in every corner of the world have been and will be fighting against all and every manifestation of the most horrendous crime against humanity – genocide, be it xenophobia or extermination, nonchalant silence or denial. We will fight with fervor because our standing as the people who had survived compels us to.