Bulgarian MP Desislav Taskov made a statement on behalf of the Socialist Party on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
“On April 24, we mark the anniversary of the mass repressions carried out by the Ottoman Empire against one and a half million innocent Armenians.
110 years ago, on the evening of April 24, 1915, mass arrests began. Within a month, hundreds of Armenians, including journalists, writers, poets and parliamentarians, were deported and killed along the way.
The Ottoman authorities then began the mass deportation of the Armenian population, followed by a campaign of systematic killings. The few survivors who managed to reach concentration camps in the Syrian desert died of hunger and thirst. Ultimately, the death toll was more than one and a half million people, including women, men and children, who disappeared from the land on which they had lived for more than two thousand years.
We must remember the bitter lessons of history, our duty to condemn the perpetrators and ensure justice for the victims.
The international community failed to prevent violence against the Armenian people at that time, largely due to the lack of preventive mechanisms and the crisis of the international order at that time.
Today, 110 years later, both the international community and the Republic of Bulgaria are obliged to recognize and respond to every crime against humanity. We cannot cover up unpunished crimes, especially against basic human rights, with a veil of indifference, as this leads to their repetition. More than a century has passed since the Genocide, but we cannot and must not forget such tragedies. Forgetting the dark pages of history gives rise to their repetition. Memory is an antidote to barbarity and cruelty towards humanity, and remembering is a duty.
That is why every year on the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day we cherish the hope that from the suffering of the past a future of peace and understanding between people and nations will be born.
We closely follow the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey and hope that the negotiations will eventually succeed, which will allow the opening of Europe’s last closed border and the two neighboring nations to live in a peaceful and prosperous region.
On the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, we express our solidarity with all Armenians living in Bulgaria, in particular with the Armenian associations and organizations in Bulgaria. We, Bulgarians, are proud that we were able to shelter the survivors on our hospitable land, to give them the opportunity to live and create. And it is the descendants of these people who today form the core of a prosperous and well-integrated Bulgarian-Armenian community, which has made a valuable contribution to the development and prosperity of our country.
“WE REMEMBER AND DEMAND,” the statement reads.