Dessislav Taskak, a member of the Bulgarian parliament, has issued a statement on behalf of the Socialist Party on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
"On April 24, we mention the anniversary of the mass repressions against one and a half million innocent Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.
110 years ago, the mass arrests began on the evening of April 24, 1915. Hundreds of Armenians, including journalists, writers, poets and deputies, were deported and killed on the road to Ankara.
Afterwards, the Ottoman authorities took a mass deportation of the Armenian population, followed by a coordinated murder campaign. The few survivors who were able to reach the concentration camps of the Syrian desert, died of starvation and thirst. After all, the number of victims made more than one and a half million, including women, men and children who disappeared from the land where they lived for more than two thousand years.
We must remember the bitter lessons of history, it is our duty to condemn the criminals and ensure justice for the victims.
At that time, the international community could not prevent violence against the Armenian people, mostly due to the lack of preventive mechanisms and the time of the international order of it.
Today, 110 years later, the international community, and the Republic of Bulgaria must recognize and respond to each crime against humanity. We cannot commit unpunished crimes, especially against the fundamental human rights, to cover with the gauze of indifference, as it leads to their repetition. More than a century has passed since the Genocide, but we cannot and at all we should not forget such tragedies. Forgotten the dark pages of history gives birth to their repetition. The memory of humanity is the antidote of barbarism and cruelty, and remembering is an obligation.
Therefore, every year the day of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, we hope that the future of peace and understanding will be born between people and peoples of the suffering of the past.
We are closely following the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey and we hope that the talks will ultimately be successful in order to open the last closed border of Europe, and the two neighboring peoples can live in a peaceful and prosperous region.
On the day of remembrance of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, we strongly announce solidarity in all Armenians living in Bulgaria, particularly in the Armenian unions and organizations of Bulgaria. We, the Bulgarians, are proud that we have been able to shelter the survivors in our hospitable soil, give them the opportunity to live and create. And it is the descendants of these people that today make up the core of the prosperous and well-integrated Bulgarian community, which has contributed valuable to the development and prosperity of our country.
REMEMBER AND RECOGNIZE, "the statement said.
