Caucasus (bbabo.net), - The initiative of the head of the Armenian National Assembly Commission on Defense and Security Issues Andranik Kocharyan smacks of madness. A similar point of view is shared by member of the Armenian parliament from the opposition faction “Armenia” Gegham Manukyan.

Earlier, Andranik Kocharyan told reporters at a briefing about the need to record the names of the victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915.

“You need to have a list of everyone, in case there are more or less than 1.5 million of them, as is commonly believed,” Kocharyan said, adding that the Jews succeeded in this, and Armenia can do the same. “This initiative is also important for building relations with Turkey, and there is no need to be embarrassed about this,” he believes.

Later, the same Kocharyan made a statement that his proposal was his personal initiative and had nothing to do with the authorities, including the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.

In a conversation with bbabo.net, Manukyan did not rule out the element of introducing another stupidity into the public discourse, awaiting a reaction from the country’s public. The deputy noted that in recent days, at the initiative of Nikol Pashinyan, new theses regarding the Armenian genocide, which are related to the policy of the Soviet Union on this issue, have been promoted.

“As for Andranik Kocharyan’s statement, it fits into the logic of the preconditions for the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations put forward by Ankara,” the oppositionist said.

He added that it was Turkey that constantly put forward such preconditions, which were rejected by the previous authorities of Armenia. Currently, in the foreign policy of the Armenian authorities, there are tendencies to refuse international recognition of the fact of the Armenian genocide and the protection of the rights of the Armenian people.

“The last thing I would like to do is comment on my colleague’s proposals, which have reached the highest degree of stupidity, and which are not serious to comment on,” the parliamentarian emphasized.

The former director of the National Archives of Armenia, Amatuni Virabyan, also touched upon the issue, according to whom it is impossible to compile lists of victims, since the inhabitants of Armenian villages in Turkey were exterminated to the roots, and there were no lists of dead people.

“Restoring their first and last names is a fantasy. I tried to do this at one time, but I realized that it was simply pointless. There are not even photographs of famous cultural figures left in Western Armenia, let alone ordinary citizens,” the expert emphasized in an interview with bbabo.net.

According to Virabyan, if representatives of the ruling force, including Andranik Kocharyan, really want to get this list, then they simply do not know history and do not understand what genocide is.

“If they realize all this, but continue to insist on the need to ‘reconcile’ the lists, then they are serving a completely different agenda,” he said. “Comparison with the Holocaust is meaningless, since Jews were exterminated in European countries where population censuses were conducted every 10 years, there were city and economic directories, and there were telephone directories. All this was preserved, and later, after the collapse of Nazi Germany, it helped to identify the victims of the Jewish tragedy.”

It is noteworthy that in many ways the insane initiative of Pashinyan’s comrade-in-arms, Andranik Kocharyan, to essentially count the victims of the genocide is combined with calls from the Prime Minister of Armenia himself to stop looking at “historical Armenia” and deal with “real Armenia.” From this point of view, Kocharyan’s “amateur activity” in the historical field may indicate a breakdown in coordination within the leadership of the ruling Civil Contract party.

Let us recall that the Armenian Genocide was recognized by the Council of Europe (1998, 2001), the European Parliament (1987, 2000, 2002, 2005), the UN Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, the World Council of Churches, the Parliamentary Coalition of South American Countries (Mercosur), the Parliament of Latin America (2015). The Armenian genocide is recognized and condemned by many countries of the world and influential international organizations. The Uruguayan parliament was the first to officially recognize and condemn the massacres of Armenians (1965). The destruction of the Armenians was officially recognized as genocide (according to international law) and condemned by 30 countries.

bbabo.Net