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The MPs of the Armenian National Assembly on Thursday visited the Yezidi sanctuary located in the village of Aknalich of Armenia’s Armavir Province to pay tribute to the memory of over 12,000 innocent Yezidis who fell victim to the massacres committed by the Islamic State militants at the Yezidi majority Shangal (Sinjar) province of Iraq on August 3, 2014.

“What happened to the Yezidi population in northern Iraq was a genocide,” deputy parliament speaker Arpine Hovhannisyan said at a briefing on Thursday.

Reflecting on the adoption of the term ‘genocide’ to refer to the crimes committed by IS against the Yazidis by the Armenian parliament, Ms. Hovhannisyan added: “Each country takes into account the sequence of concrete steps in the sidelines of the process, trying to take a step closer the issue within the priorities of the foreign political agenda. It is not a process lasting a minute or an hour.”

MP Rustam Makhmudyan, member of the Yezidi community, in his turn added that the Armenian parliament is included to adopt a document on the genocide committed against the Yezidi community in Iraq on August 3, 2014.