OUR WILL IS STRONGER THAN GRANITE

Recently, while I was following the news on the BBC, I listened to an interview with a former Ivory Coast official, who was charged with crimes against humanity and spent years behind bars in The Hague. In the interview before this politician returned to his country, he was asked what the first thing was he would like to do. The answer amazed me: “I will ask forgiveness from the victims.”

One hundred and six years of denial of the Armenian Genocide, distortion of History and the destruction of monuments in Western Armenia were not enough. On July 14, 2020, the president of Turkey arrogantly and shamelessly declared that “we will continue to fulfill this mission, which our grandfathers have carried out for centuries, in the Caucasus region.”

Such statements are worse than the pandemic for Turkey, the entire region, and society at large. The road to revert the genocidal crime against the Armenian nation is to ask for forgiveness and offer reparations, thus starting a new age of cooperation and prosperity.

We have been on the Armenian Plateau for more than five thousand years and we will be there forever. Until then, our will is stronger than granite, our patience is deeper than the oceans, and our aspirations are higher than the skies.

ARCHBISHOP ANOUSHAVAN
Prelate