BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
The presidents of the United States, France, and Turkey issued statements on April 24, the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Of the three, only the French President Emmanuel Macron had the honesty and courage to call the tragic events by their proper name — Genocide. President Trump avoided using the term genocide, while President Erdogan, not surprisingly, issued a denialist statement!
President Macron stated in his April 24 letter to Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian: “With you, we remember April 24, 1915 and the murder of 600 Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople that marked the start of the first genocide of the 20th century. We will never forget those murdered men, women and children who perished on the road to exile, from hunger, cold and emaciation”¦. Together with Great Britain and Russia, France, as early as May 25, 1915, described those massacres as a crime against humanity and civilization. In September 1915, the French fleet, under fire, managed to save over 4,000 refugees from Musa Dagh.”
