YEREVAN—Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian met with visiting Greek President Karolos Populias on Tuesday in Yerevan.
The two Presidents had a meeting at the Presidential Palace, followed by negotiations with the participation of delegations and a document signing ceremony.
“It’s a great honor for me to host the President of friendly Greece,” President Sarkisian told reporters after the meeting.
“We had a detailed discussion on all issues on the bilateral agenda and the routes of expansion of collaboration. We agreed that the inter-state relations between Armenia and Greece have always been on a high level,” the Armenian President said, emphasizing the reciprocal visits, the development of economic, scientific-educational, cultural, public and inter-parliamentary ties.
Serzh Sarkisian hailed the constructive dialogue established between the Defense Ministries of the two countries and reminded that the cooperation between Armenian and Greek servicemen in peacekeeping operations received the highest assessment.
“During the meeting we reiterated the willingness to deepen the cooperation between our countries in multilateral formats, including in the framework of the Greece-EU partnership. I stressed Armenia’s resoluteness to develop relations with the European Union in all possible directions and voiced hope that friendly Greece would support us on that path,” President Sarkisian said.
The Armenian President said he briefed his Greek counterpart on the latest developments in the settlement of the Karabakh issue. “Armenia highly appreciates Greece’s balanced and constructive position on the issue, which envisages support to the OSCE Minsk Group activity and the ways of solution proposed by the mediators,” he added.
“We are grateful to Greece for being one of the first to recognize the Armenian Genocide with the force of law and for the recent important legislative steps in the struggle against its denial. The adoption of the anti-hate crime law on Combating Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism was an effective tool for struggling against denial,” Sarkisian said.
“In 2015 the Armenian people will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Armenia will become one of the important platforms for the international struggle against this crime against humanity,” Sarkisian said and added that he has invited President Papoulias to participate in the commemoration events to be organized in Yerevan on April 24.
During the meeting the two Presidents discussed a number of urgent issues on international agenda, as well. “As representatives of the two ancient Christian nations, we are especially concerned about the state of Christian communities in the Middle East,” President Sarkisian concluded.
The Greek President also visited Dzidzernagapert to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide.
Why won’t Armenia return the favor and recognize the Greek genocide?
Instead of relying on others why doesn’t the Armenian government go to the international court to demand justice? Why doesn’t the Armenian government try to encourage the diaspora to get more involved in setting national policy? Why doesn’t the Armenian government work on creating jobs and stopping the emigration? Why doesn’t the Armenian government work for the betterment of the Armenian people?
No other nation in this world truly cares about any other country’s national interests. Each has its own set of problems and issues to overcome. There is no logic in believing that any third nation is going to drop everything and pursue justice for the sake of the Armenians. We either band together and work on finding solutions to our problems or forget about the whole thing. We’re just spinning our wheels and grinding away day by day by believing this or that country will be our savior.
Erdogan should understand, by releasing hatred textbooks and defamation posters will not make any good to Turkey, the contrary, it will bring humiliation and will dip the name of Turkey in the mud. Turkey deserves a brave leader that can come in terms with it’s past, unfortunatly Erdogan is not the man, he is real coward.