Armenian Community Wants Parliament to Recognize 1915 Slaughter as Genocide

(Tbilisi. April 24, 2003. Civil Georgia) – Couple of hundreds of ethnic Armenians gathered today in Tbilisi to pay tribute to the victims of the 1915 slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

Armenian community in Georgia requested Georgian Parliament to recognize slaughter as genocide.

Meanwhile, the issue caused disputes in Georgian Parliament today after MP Hamlet Movsesian, representative of the Armenian community in Georgia, requested to pay tribute to the victims of the 1915 events.

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze asked the MPs to pay tribute not only victims of the 1915 slaughter, but also to the victims of all the conflicts around the world including Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Georgians and Abkhazians in the Abkhaz conflict.

Parliamentary Chairperson?s decision and MP Hamlet Movsesian?s requests caused protest of MPs representing Azerbaijani community in Georgia.

The similar incident occurred in the Georgian Parliament on April 24, 2002 when MPs representing the Armenian community demanded adoption of the resolution recognizing the 1915 slaughter as genocide.

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