Armenian Genocide is undeniable fact - Pashinyan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday clarified his recent comments about the Armenian Genocide, denying accusations of having questioned the fact in his speech at a meeting in Switzerland.

Pashinyan underscored at a press conference that the Armenian Genocide is an undeniable and indisputable fact. He reminded that Armenian Genocide denial is a criminal offense by Armenian legislation.

“Overall, it is surprising how one can be accused of genocide denial when he says ‘genocide’ while speaking about it,” Pashinyan said.

He explained that his remarks about the genocide were about the need for the topic to become a tool of self-knowledge in a broad sense.

“Shouldn’t the genocide make us once again revisit our formulas of perceiving the world? Is it possible that we haven’t been perceiving the realities accurately in the beginning of the century, in the middle of the century, in the end of the century, and even today? Is it possible that we’ve been relying too much on some foreign encouragements? Maybe we haven’t been accurately calculating our attitude to those signals. This issue has been pressing in the beginning of the century, and it is a pressing matter today. Forthermore, I don’t have an answer. What I am saying is, folks, the right self-reflection is an important thing, for us to revisit and address our formulas again. In our reality we have always spoken about the Mets Yeghern [Armenian Genocide], but, in our reality, has the issue of the relations between the Young Turks and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation been perceived? Furthermore, the whole topic changes when this matter gets politicized and attempted to use as a tool to criticize the present-day Armenian Revolutionary Federation.”

Pashinyan said that the Armenian Genocide is an integral part of the people’s identity.