90 Second Proof Of The Armenian Genocide

YEREVAN, APRIL 6, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) said on March 22, 2005 Ross Vartian, Executive Director of the AAA, was interviewed by Al Hurra TV network (a U.S. State Department sponsored TV network broadcast to the Arabic speaking world).

Mr. Vartian was given 90 seconds to answer the question: "Armenians claim that the Turks committed genocide - what proof is there?" If his response was longer than 90 seconds, it would have been edited. Mr. Vartian used the full 90 seconds without going over that time limit.

Below is the English version of Mr. Vartian's response:

"The U.S. National Archives contain thousands of pages documenting the premeditated extermination of the Armenian people. The official records of many other countries corroborate the evidence gathered by U.S. diplomats, including Ottoman Turkey's WW I friends and foes.

At the end of WW I, a Turkish Military Tribunal was convened. The Prime Minister, the Minister of War, the Minister of the Navy and the Minister of Education were declared guilty by unanimous vote of the Tribunal.

Adolph Hitler understood the world's tendency to not act on its moral outrage and to move on when he said on the eve of his invasion of Poland, "Who, after all, speaks nowadays of the annihilation of the Armenians."

Today a growing list of nations and intergovernmental bodies has affirmed the facts of the Armenian Genocide.

Additionally, 126 Holocaust and Genocide scholars declared the Armenian Genocide an incontestable fact, urged all democracies to recognize this crime and called upon Turkey to do the same.

The International Center for Transitional Justice was asked to study the applicability of the UN Genocide Convention to this crime against humanity. It found that "the events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention."

Pope John Paul, Nobel Laureates Bishop Desmond Tutu and Elie Weisel, and most recently renowned Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, all have affirmed the truth. To enhance its standing in the international community, to come to terms with its genocidal legacy, and for the sake of its evolving democracy, Turkey should face the facts of history."