The “Stop the Protocols” Campaign, a broad-based coalition of Armenian youth groups and organizations across the United States, demonstrated Friday against the Turkey-Armenia protocols at the Swiss Consulate in Los Angeles, Asbarez informs.

The protest sought to inform the Swiss government of the contradictions the documents and that the one-sided protocols threaten Armenia and undermine the rights of all Armenians.

Two protesters, Caspar Jivalagian Haroutin Haroutinian, met with Swiss Consul Brigitta Schoch Dettweiler. “The meeting with the Swiss Consul General was an important step in expressing our community’s disapproval of the protocols and course being taken in the Turkey-Armenia negotiations process. We explained to the Consul that the protest was not against the Swiss government but against the mediation process. The voice of our community needs to be heard by all those involved in making decisions affecting the fate of the Armenian nation,” declared Jivalagian.

During the meeting with Dettweiler they also thanked the Swiss government for its firm stand in recognition of the Armenian Genocide. (Swiss parliament voted for official recognition of massacres in East Turkey as Armenian Genocide during and after the WWI.)

Pointing to the hundred people rallied outside the consulate, one demonstrator, Patil Aslanian, exclaimed that “if we do not express our opposition, then the Armenian government will not see how the overwhelming majority of people in the Diaspora are against the protocols.”

Schoch Dettweiler, for her part, said her government was not involved in the drafting of the protocols, adding that the Swiss are trying to stay as neutral as possible and are only interested in facilitating talks between Armenia and Turkey, Asbarez informs.