Most reliable guarantee of our Motherland’s defense capacity and security is a free, sovereign and democratic statehood, efficient army: Bako Sahakyan

President of the Republic of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan issued a statement on the occasion of the Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day, press service of the Artsakh President’s Office told. The statement reads:

“Dear compatriots,

April 24, 1915 has become one of the most tragic and bloody pages of our millennia-old history. In those April days the Ottoman Turkey launched a monstrous plan aimed at complete extermination of the Armenian people, annihilation of our historic homeland, cultural and spiritual values.

This was the first Genocide committed on a state level; one and a half million Armenians became victim to this, almost as many were deported from their ancestral hearths and Fatherland, their property was robbed and embezzled by the butchers.

But, the Armenian people due to their unshakable faith, firmness, endless love and devotion towards the Motherland were able to resist this terrible calamity. The Armenian tricolor was hoisted again in a small part of our historic homeland and today we have free, independent and sovereign Mother Armenia and the Artsakh Republic.

Our compatriots having narrowly escaped from slaughter found refuge in different corners of the world and formed a powerful diaspora which lives with the Motherland’s concerns and has become an important pillar of our statehood. The Armenian Genocide will never be erased from our people’s memory.

We will firmly continue struggling for the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and condemnation of its denial. This crime with no expiration date must not be forgotten by the civilized world either.

Oblivion and indifference is a crime in itself and can lead to new atrocities in the future. This simple truth has been proved many times in the XX and XXI centuries, and we are grateful to all those people and states that were with our nation during those days of ordeal, that go on supporting us today for the restoration of justice in our struggle.

Commemorating the victims we must realize that the most reliable guarantee of our Motherland’s defense capacity and security is a free, sovereign and democratic statehood, efficient army, the firm Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora trinity. And we will do our best for strengthening, developing and empowering them.”