On April 24, Armenians around the world and many other nations commemorated the Armenian Genocide. A crime against humanity, which is denied by the two members of the Council of Europe: Turkey and Azerbaijan. Armen Gevorgyan, an MP of the opposition “Armenia” Faction in the National Assembly of Armenia, stated this in his remarks at the PACE spring session on Monday. He added as follows, in particular:

"The International Association of Genocide Scholars calls ‘denial’ the last stage of the same genocide crime.

There is another thing that these days Azerbaijan denies, with the support of Turkey; that is, the right of Armenians to live in their historical homeland.

After the 44-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan in the fall of 2020 in the Artsakh Republic—in Nagorno-Karabakh—the Armenian people are facing a dilemma. Either to continue on the path of its independent development and dignified life, preserving the national identity, or to repeat the terrible fate of our compatriots who once lived in the region called Nakhichevan, which is now part of Azerbaijan.

During 70 years within Soviet Azerbaijan, the entire Armenian population of Nakhichevan has completely disappeared. The Armenian cultural and religious heritage of Nakhichevan has been completely destroyed. Now Azerbaijan is trying to force the Armenians of Artsakh to suffer the same fate.

I call on the Council of Europe to send a clear and strong signal to all parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that the international community will continue to support the three key principles—set out by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs—for the settlement of the conflict.

I believe peace in our region has no alternative. For long and sustainable peace solutions are needed that must be mutually acceptable. The important challenge for our organization is to limit Azerbaijani efforts to secure the silent consent of Europe in its business of denying the right of people of Artsakh to self-determination in exchange for [natural] gas and oil.

And finally, Mr. President, it was a shock to see yesterday that Turkish Foreign Minister [Mevlut] Cavusoglu, who has been the President of this Assembly for two years, communicates with the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors through the gestures of a well-known Turkish nationalist terrorist organization. Such behavior should be unacceptable and condemned by the Council of Europe. I call on the Turkish representatives to work with the same diligence to recognize the Armenian Genocide."