On March 22-23 International conference was held in Yerevan on «Armenian genocide: challenges on the 100th anniversary». It was organized by State Committee that coordinates all the events concerning the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. This Committee was created by the order of RA President 2 years ago. In his message addressed to those presents RA President Serzh Sargsyan said that the results of the conference would be taken into consideration for further plans.
«The world is more interested in culture, i. e. cinema, music and art and not in conferences»,- said Richard Hovhannisyan and also noted that there is little information about the Armenian Genocide on the websites of Armenian diplomatic representatives, which is a big gap.
American-Armenian scholar, professor, historian on the Armenian Genocide, Director of Genocide Research in Zoryan Institute Vahakn Dadrian spoke about the perspectives of genocide research. In his report he compared Jewish Holocaust with the Armenian Genocide mentioning that Jewish genocide was also the program of Turkish political parties, especially «Ittihat» party. He mentioned that nowadays their Institute studies the conditions that made Ittihat members to make such program.
Professor Dadrian noticed that as a result of Armenian Genocide the Armenians were massacred in their homeland and lost it unlike Jews. The head of NAS RA Institute of Oriental Studies Ruben Safrastyan agreed with the latter. But opposed to Dadrian’s viewpoint that Armenian Genocide was a party program noting that during the Hamidian massacres (1894-96) there was no party. Historian Armen Marukyan noticed that there was combination of Young Turk party and the Turkish state.
The director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, the secretary of the State Committee coordinating the events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Genocide Hayk Demoyan represented the upcoming events dedicated to the Genocide and spoke about the construction of a new building of the Museum, which will give an opportunity to represent more materials with the help of modern technologies.
On the first day of the symposium the experts spoke about other issues as well, such as the memoirs of genocide survivors, the series of photos connected to the genocide, the publication of the new encyclopedia on Armenian Genocide.
The experts spoke about the dual politics of US presidents, especially the politics of B. Obama, the falsification of the historical facts by Turkey.
The participants discussed the issue of the Armenian Genocide in the context of current situation in Syria as well.
Some experts noticed that, Turkish government is interested in the fortune of the Armenians from Syria. Hayk Demoyan was offered to found a council of the heads of RA armenological institutions, in order to find out what kind of steps are taken. This will help to use the resources effectively and to predict the further steps ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
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