Armen Marukyan, Head of the Department of the Armenian Issue and the Armenian Genocide of the National Academy of Sciences, is sure that the Pan-Armenian Declaration of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide has made a significant change of emphasis on the Armenian issue. “Until recently, people were fighting for international recognition of the Genocide and have recorded some successes. But it is evident that the international recognition process does not lead to solution of the problem, recognition for us is one of the ways to achieve a solution rather than a goal. Turkey has not left any way out other than to move the issue to the legal field. The strategic pan-Armenian Declaration was the first one that for the first time announced that we are not only fighting for the recognition, but also for the consequences of this crime,” said the expert at the “Debate” club.
Consequences of the crimes committed by the Ottoman Empire, according to Armen Marukyan, are five of them. “The first one is deprivation of the Motherland, secondly, the loss of the historical and cultural heritage, and the policy of elimination of cultural heritage is continued by Turkey up to day. Next, the human and material losses. Material losses were huge, they have led a policy of massive deprivation of properties. According to Nubar Boghos Pasha’s calculations, Western Armenians suffered material loss of over 19 billion sterling, although this figure is provisional and cannot be considered final. This calculation does not include the losses caused by the invasion of the Turkish army to the Eastern Armenia, as well as the size of the losses caused to Armenians in Cilicia, Baku and Zmurnia. In other words, this more than 19 billion should be added at least by twenty percent.”
According to the expert, Nubar Boghos Pasha, as a size of losses, by presenting 19 billion sterling, has calculated only the size of the losses caused to the Apostolic Armenians, in other words, the losses of the Armenians belonging to Protestant, Catholic community were not counted. Among the Genocide consequences, he mentioned also the mental damages caused to Armenian and the psychological damages caused as a result of the denial policy of the genocide up to now. “We need to have a clear plan of actions to know the mechanisms to proceed with a claim towards elimination of these consequences,” said Mr. Marukyan.
Arpine SIMONYAN
