FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ottawa – In a nationally televised address on Thursday April 22, President Serzh Sarkisian, citing continued preconditions by Turkey, suspended the Armenia-Turkey protocols process. Earlier in the day, Armenia’s governing coalition issued a statement suspending further parliamentary discussion of the protocols.

The President stated that “For a whole year, Turkey’s senior officials have not spared public statements in the language of preconditions. For a whole year, Turkey has done everything to protract time and fail the process. Hence, our conclusion and position are straightforward:

1.Turkey is not ready to continue the process that was started and to move forward without preconditions in line with the letter of the Protocols.
2.The reasonable timeframes have, in our opinion, elapsed. The Turkish practice of passing the 24th of April at any cost is simply unacceptable.
3.We consider unacceptable the pointless efforts of making the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey an end in itself; from this moment on, we consider the current phase of normalization exhausted,”

This statement comes almost a week after the meeting of Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian in Washington, where Erdogan told Sarkissian that Turkey’s parliament would not ratify the fence-mending agreements with Armenia if they were put to a vote now. He blamed it on recent decisions by U.S. and Swedish lawmakers to recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 perpetrated by the Young Turks. “If the protocols are brought to the agenda of the parliament while U.S. and Swedish parliaments are taking decisions on the issue, they will be rejected,” he reportedly said.

The President of the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC) commented on this issue, he said that “The suspension of the Protocols by President Sarkissian comes as no surprise given the genocidal mindset of the Turkish Prime Minister. Only a few weeks ago Christopher Hitchens of Slate Magazine stated that according to Erdogan, If democratic assemblies dare to mention the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the 20th century, he will personally complete that cleansing in the 21st!. It is this language and that of preconditions that led to the suspension of the protocols by the Armenian side.”

Dr. Basmadjian also commented on the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. The symposium on the Armenian Genocide titled “1915 Within Its Pre- and Post-Historical Periods: Denial and Confrontation,” which was to be held in Ankara on April 24 2010, was cancelled on April 21 after facing political and bureaucratic hurdles. Dr Basmadjian denounced the cancellation calling it a “Big harm to democracy and reward for the Denial of the Armenian Genocide.” The President of ANCC also praised the courageous decision of the Committee Against Racism and Discrimination of the Istanbul Branch of Human Rights Association of Turkey to organize a gathering at the entrance of Haydarpasha Station in Istanbul, Turkey on April 24, to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide. He expressed his concerns however stating that “Under article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, the free expression of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is a crime. Will the participants of this gathering express their humane ideas freely, or arrested for insulting Turkishness under 301? That is the question.”

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The ANCC is the largest and the most influential Canadian-Armenian grassroots political organization. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout Canada and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCC actively advances the concerns of the Canadian-Armenian community on a broad range of issues.

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Le CNAC est l'organisation politique canadienne-arménienne la plus large et influentielle. Collaborant avec une série de bureaux, chapitres et souteneurs à travers le Canada et des organisations affiliées à travers le monde, le CNAC s'occupe activement des inquiétudes de la communauté canadienne-arménienne.