It is absurd that people denying Armenian Genocide can be found in Armenia — Lusine Sahakyan

The Armenian government rejected the draft amendments to the Criminal Code on criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide. Alpha News spoke with Turkologist Lusine Sahakyan on this topic.

According to her, it is absurd that such an issue could arise in Armenia.

“For years, Turks have been trying to develop tough denial mechanisms with the help of various tools, but the truth and existing facts are blatant. Regardless, it is the duty of specialists to continue their research, to uncover details regarding the Armenian Genocide and document them,” Sahakyan said.

The Turkologist said she is preparing to present her book on the Armenian Genocide in Glendale.

“The book has recently been published. Before that, the presentation was held at the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem because these documents are kept in the Patriarchate’s archives. The archive, consisting of 25 files, was secretly sent to Manchester in 1922, and from there to Marseille because Patriarch Zaven foresaw the possibility of a Kemalist invasion of Constantinople. And in 1938, this archive was entrusted to the Armenian Patriarchate for safekeeping.

When Patriarch Zaven returned from exile and took the patriarchal throne, he, with the support of the British and some commissioners from allied countries, collected information concerning the Armenian issue. In the archive, you can see letters, reports and statistical lists in Ottoman, Armenian, French and English. Together with the Patriarchate, we began scanning these documents. This led to the decision to compile the first collection, after which we decided to publish the dossier,” Sahakyan said.