Your trusted source

Former Armenian Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan has denounced as “absolutely unacceptable” a pro-government MP’s statement on the need to “verify” the number of the 1915 Armenian Genocide victims.

"We need to make the list of 1.5 million compatriots subjected to genocide more objective and build real foundations so the other side [Turkey] can't say no such thing happened. It's necessary to have the names of all Armenians subjected to genocide, and verify where, how and under what conditions they were killed," Andranik Kocharyan, a senior MP from Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party, said on Monday.

“The Turkish authorities are those who have always sought to cast doubt on the number of the Armenian Genocide victims, promoting their policy of denial,” Tatoyan said in a statement.

"Genocide scholars, as well as the countries that have recognized the Armenian Genocide have never questioned the number of victims put at 1.5 million. It has never even been a subject of discussion. Moreover, the number of victims has absolutely nothing to do with the crime of genocide.

“Genocide refers to the deliberate destruction of a group of people based on their ethnicity, nationality, religion or race and not just the killing of a certain number of people or their annihilation. Such an approach is also a blatant disrespect for the memory of innocent victims,” Tatoyan underscored.