At the commemoration of the Genocide of the Armenians, Minister of National Defence, Nikos Dendias said: “Greece stands and will always stand by Armenia“.
On the occasion of the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and 30 years since its recognition by the Greek Parliament, the Minister of National Defence,Nikos Dendias underlined at a special event, “Greece stands and will always stand by Armenia, with a sense of responsibility towards its own history“. Nikos Dendias even mentioned the former Speaker of the Parliament, Apostolos Kaklamanis, that during his time the Greek Parliament recognized and established April 24, which we commemorate today, as a day of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.
“It has been 111 years since April 24, 1915 and today we commemorate the day when the Neo-Turkish leadership, in the name of ethnic purity and homogeneity, ignored, despised and trampled on every principle of humanism and initiated the systematic – I repeat systematic – extermination of the Armenian people. Starting from the heads of the Armenian nation, from the arrest of hundreds of intellectuals, clerics and precursors of the Armenian community in Istanbul“, Nikos Dendias stressed.
“We, here in Greece, after the genocide, after the Micrasian Catastrophe, we welcomed tens of thousands of our Armenian brothers and sisters, refugees who were uprooted from their ancestral homes. They too experienced the persecution that the Greeks of Asia Minor experienced”, recalled Nikos Dendias.
Closing his speech, the Minister of National Defence noted: “The Armenian community in Greece has grown, flourished, prospered, contributed, lives with us, marches with us, for the future of European Greece, which we want, wish and support our friend Armenia to share.”
