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Paris to erect memorial to victims of Armenian genocide
PARIS, April 19 -- Paris is to erect a monument in the memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide, city hall announced Thursday.
A statue of the composer Komitas, who has become an emblematic figure from the 1915-1917 massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey, will be placed near the city's Armenian church sometime next year, it said.
The announcement comes after the French parliament adopted a law recognising the killings as a genocide, triggering a diplomatic spat with Turkey which has long argued that accounts of the killings are exaggerated.
Armenians claim that around 1.5 million people were massacred, while Turkey insists that between 300,000 and 500,000 died, many of them in combat with Turkish troops.
Paris' new Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, will meet representatives of
the city's Armenian community on Tuesday next week, the official day of
commemoration for the genocide.
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives