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Armenians young and old mourn victims of `Genocide'
YEREVAN, April 24 (`Reuters') - Tens of thousands of Armenian mourners gathered on a hilltop above the capital Yerevan on Tuesday to remember the more than one million victims of what they say was a genocide by Ottoman Turks during World War One.
Emotions still run high both in the tiny former Soviet republic and in neighbouring Turkey, which denies the charge of genocide and says there were victims on both sides of partisan fighting as the Ottoman Empire crumbled.
On Armenia's national day of mourning, a river of people young and old walked slowly up a tree-lined path to Yerevan's genocide memorial -- a towering granite needle flanked by an eternal flame.
Elderly men in threadbare suits clutching tulips and daffodils climbed alongside wealthy Armenians with video cameras from the country's huge diaspora in the United States and Western Europe.
"I think it's important for every Armenian to commemorate the genocide and remember the victims," said Sevan Yousefian, a 23-year-old student from Massachusetts.
"It's very moving for me to be here, shoulder to shoulder with Armenians from all over the world."
Snow-capped Mount Ararat bore silent witness to the ceremony from across the border in eastern Turkey, the region where Armenians say their forefathers were systematically exterminated between 1915 and 1923.
Hrachik Manukyan, a 68-year-old doctor, said his family came from the shores of Lake Van in Turkey, and that many of them were killed by the Ottoman armies.
"That is where we lived, we had houses and land there, we buried our gold in the soil," he said.
"What the Armenians have lost must be returned to them, and the people who did such terrible things must be punished."
ARMENIA SEEKS INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION, TURKISH APOLOGY
With the support of its influential diaspora, Armenia is seeking international recognition of its past suffering, and wants an apology from Turkey.
In a written message, President Robert Kocharyan said on Tuesday international recognition of the genocide was still high on the agenda and would help "regional cooperation and stability" in the tinderbox region.
But Turkey has reacted angrily to such moves and earlier this year banned French firms from defence contracts potentially worth billions of dollars after France's parliament voted to recognise Armenian accusations of genocide.
The U.S. Congress dropped a resolution on the same issue last year after former President Bill Clinton warned it would harm U.S. security interests in the Middle East where Turkey is a key NATO ally.
But the powerful U.S. Armenian lobby, representing some one million Armenians, is pressing the new administration of President George W. Bush to confront the issue again.
In Iran, some 10,000 protesters from a 250,000-strong ethnic Armenian population gathered outside their cathedral in the capital Tehran on Tuesday, chanting slogans against the United States and Turkey.
Iran has so far resisted condemning its Western neighbour Turkey over
the Armenian claims of atrocities.
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives