Desislav Taskov, a Member of the Parliament of Bulgaria, issued a statement on behalf of the Socialist Party of Bulgaria, on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Below is the text of this statement publicized by the Armenian embassy in Bulgaria.
“On April 24, we commemorate the anniversary of the mass repression of Armenians carried out by the Ottoman Empire against a million and a half innocent victims.
110 years ago on April 24, 1915 mass arrests begin in the evening. For one month hundreds of Armenians, including t. .. journalists, writers, poets and MPs have been deported and killed on the road leading to Ankara. The Ottoman authorities then undertake mass deportation of the Armenian population, followed by a campaign of systematic killings. A large part of it was destroyed during real death marches. The few survivors who manage to reach the concentration camps in the Syrian desert are dying of hunger and thirst. In the end, the victims cost more than a million and a half people, including women and children, who have been disappearing from the land inhabited by them for more than two thousand years.
We are obliged to remember the bitter lessons of history, it is our duty to convict the perpetrators and ensure justice for the victims! From the distance of time, we have no doubt that the international community has failed to prevent violence against the Armenian people to a large extent due to the lack of preventive mechanisms and the crisis of the international order at that time.
Today, one hundred and ten years later, both the international community and the Republic of Bulgaria have it in our duty to recognize and respond to every single crime against humanity. We cannot cover up unpunished crimes with the mug of indifference, especially against basic human rights, because this leads to their repetition. It's been over a century since the genocide, but we cannot and definitely must not forget such tragedies! Throwing into oblivion the dark pages of history causes their repetition. Memory is the antidote to barbarism and atrocities against humanity and to remember is a duty.
That is why every year, on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide, we feed the hope that from the suffering of the past, a future of peace and mutual understanding will be born between people and nations. We are following the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey closely and hope that negotiations will eventually succeed to open Europe's last closed border and the two neighbouring nations can live in a peaceful and prosperous region.
On the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide, we express solidarity with all Armenians living in Bulgaria, in particular with all Armenian unions and organizations in Bulgaria. We, the Bulgarians, are proud to have been able to house the survivors of our hospitable land, to give them the opportunity to live and create. And it is the descendants of these people today form the core of the thriving and well-integrated Bulgarian-Armenian community, which makes a valuable contribution to the development and prosperity of our country.
WE REMEMBER AND DEMAND!”
