Armenia says genocide policy unchanged

Armenian and Azeri media recently reported that dropping, by the Armenian government, of a regular reference to the alleged genocide in next year’s draft budget was a sign of a possible shift in Yerevan’s genocide policy.

But an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman outrightly denied the reports. "There is no change in our policy for the recognition of the genocide on the international platform," Anatolia news agency quoted spokesman Hamlet Gasparyan as saying.

Recognition of the so-called geocide is not only a matter of Armenia and Armenian diaspora but also of the entire international community, he added. "So, the matter of recognition cannot be limited to a budget or financial document."

Abandoning the genocide claims is high among the conditions put forward by Turkey to normalize ties with land-locked Armenia. But Yerevan should also end its occupation of the Azeri territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and revise its constitution to take out provisions that include territorial claims in Turkey, for better relations, Turkish officials say.

In response to the media reports, Ankara earlier this week said that it had not observed any indication that Armenia would abandon its genocide policy.

Armenians claim that 1.5 million Armenians died as part of a genocide campaign at the hands of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the last century. Turkey categorically denies the charges, saying that the death toll is inflated and that the killings occured when the Ottoman Empire was trying to quell civil unrest during the World War I period.