Iranian Armenians have gathered in a church in the capital city of Tehran to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman forces.
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Thousands of Iranian Armenians took to Saint Sarkis Cathedral in Tehran to pay tribute to the victims of the notorious massacre.
The participants held banners reading “We remember and demand justice.”
Several Iranian officials and ambassadors of foreign countries also attended the event.
The representative of the Armenian communities of Tehran and northern Iran in Parliament addressed the congregation, calling on Ankara to recognize as "genocide" the mass murder of Armenians by Ottoman forces during World War I.
“What Armenians demand now is that the Turkish government recognize [the massacre] as genocide and accept its legal consequences,” Karen Khanlari said.
The late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, condemned the massacre of Armenians and stressed that such an incident would never take place in Iran where Armenians are allowed to enjoy all rights of an ordinary citizen, Khanlari said while hailing Tehran’s stance on the issue.
Iran kindly hosted the Armenian refugees who were forced to migrate to other countries in the 1910s, he further said.
Khanlari expressed hope that international pressure and condemnations play a key role in forcing Ankara to acknowledge historical facts.
On Friday, hundreds of thousands, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande, participated in a commemoration ceremony in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
"I bow down in memory of the victims and I come to tell my Armenian friends that we will never forget the tragedies that your people have endured," Hollande said during the event.
Similar memorials are also scheduled to be held around the world by the Armenian diaspora.
Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically slaughtered in eastern Turkey through mass killings, forced relocations and starvation, a process that began in 1915 and took place over several years during World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey fiercely opposes the use of the term “genocide,” saying that the conflict saw many people from both sides killed.
/SR
