21.02.2023


French MPs of the European Parliament, co-chairs of the friendship group with Artsakh in the Council of Europe Sylvie Guillaume and François Alphonse visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial on February 21, accompanied by Gaspar Karapetyan, the president of the European office of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Hay Dat/Armenian Cause, Heghine Evinyan, the director of the same office, and Gevorg Ghukasyan, the head of the special programs of Hay Dat Central Office.

The guests were welcomed by AGMI Director Harutyun Marutyan, who narrated the history of the creation of the Memorial. He also presented the guests with the history of the three khachkars placed in the Tsitsernakaberd area in memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak) and Baku in the last century organised by the Azerbaijani government, emphasizing the connection between what happened and the Armenian Genocide.

The European guests put flowers at the Eternal Fire and observed a minute’s silence in memory of the innocent martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.

Harutyun Marutyan took the guests to the Memory Wall, at the back of which, in special niches, in small jugs, soil taken from the graves of a number of foreign public figures, politicians, intellectuals and missionaries are being placed, who raised their voice of protest against the massacres and deportations of Armenians carried out by the Turkish government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

They also toured the Armenian Genocide Museum accompanied by AGMI senior guide Hasmik Martirosyan, becoming acquainted with the permanent and temporary exhibitions there, after which they made notes in the Memory Book for Honourable Guests.

Expressing his gratitude for the visit, AGMI Director Harutyun Marutyan, presented to the guests some books about the Armenian Genocide.