It isn't our rule to be hosted by guest - Armenian leader to Turkey's Erdogan

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has responded to his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdoğan’s invitation to ceremonies marking the centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli in Çanakkale, on April 23 and 24.

Below is the Armenian leader’s letter of response:

“Honorable Mr President,

“I have received your invitation to take part in ceremonies marking the centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli in Çanakkale.

“Indeed, World War I is one of the horrible chapters in human history, which claimed millions of innocent lives and ruined fates. Captain Sargis Torosyan, a gunner of the Ottoman troops, was one of the participants in the Battle of Gallipoli. He was an officer loyal to the Empire and to the defense of its security and received awards for his loyal service and heroic deeds from the Ottoman Empire. However, the same year, the wave of the preplanned massacres and forcible displacement of the Armenian population by the Ottoman Empire did not bypass Sargis Toprosyan. His parents fell victim to the Genocide by being brutally murdered, and his sister died in Syrian deserts.

“It was that massacre that made Raphael Lemkin coin the term ‘genocide.’ It was impunity that paved the way for the Jewish Holocaust, genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia and Darfur. 

“You claim that the Battle of Gallipoli is a unique example of friendship formed during the war - and the battlefield a monument to peace and friendship and a reminder of the bitter legacy of the war – not only for Turkey, but also for the entire world.

“Leaving aside the well-known meaning of the Battle of Gallipoli or Turkey’s controversial role in two world wars, one must remember that peace and friendship first and foremost should be based on the courage to face your own the past, historical justice, as well as on recognition of full-fledged universal memory rather than on a selective approach.

“Regrettably, Turkey continues its traditional denial policy, ‘improving on’ its set of instruments for distorting historical facts year by year. This is the first year that the anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli is scheduled for April 24, whereas it began on March 18, 1915, and lasted until the end of January 1916. And the landing operation began on April 25. What is the aim if not a primitive intention to divert the international community’s attention from events marking the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

“So I would advise you to remember and include in your calls of international peace also a message to the world to recognize the Armenian Genocide and mark the memory of its one-and-a-half million victims. It is duty of each of us to impart the real and undistorted history to the next generations, thereby preventing the repetition of massacres and building grounds for rapprochement and further cooperation among nations, especially neighboring nations.”

P.S. Your Excellency, several months ago I invited you to visit Yerevan on April 24, 2015, to pay respects to the memory of innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide. It is not our rule to be hosted without receiving an answer to our own invitation.