Armenia hosts thousands of Armenian-Syrians refugees and offers them ultra-rapid citizenship, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE said.

Arpine Hovhannisyan recalled that during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 thousands of Armenians were saved or found refuge in the rural areas of Syria that were part of the Ottoman Empire. And it was mostly the Aleppo area that accommodated the survivors.

 “It is time to acknowledge that the Christian communities in the Middle East and in this case the Armenian Community of Syria are the abandoned orphans of the civilized world, forgotten and left to the mercy of mercenaries. The Christian communities, that were once the catalyst of progress of these ancient lands, are being wiped out. Unless we acknowledge our responsibilities towards Middle East countries, we will soon see a different Middle East – a Middle East free of civilization, any human rights and any hope for the future. That will take us to a different Europe, therefore a different world. The world that neither Robert Schuman, nor any of us would ever imagine,” the statement reads.