Putin: world community has to do everything to ensure that people live without horrors of aggressive nationalism and xenophobia
YEREVAN. April 24 (Interfax) - Mass killings of people cannot be justified, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Armenian Genocide memorial event.
"We have always believed that mass killings of people are not justified and cannot be justified by anything," Putin said at the ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on Friday.
Putin said Russia is a participant of and an initiator of a whole number of international regulations that lay the foundation of modern international criminal law, including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
"The world community has a duty to do everything to prevent the tragic events of the past from occurring again, to ensure that all peoples can live in peace and accord, not knowing the horrors that result form the fanning of religious feud and aggressive nationalism, xenophobia," the Russian president said.
Putin emphasized that Russia grieves with the people of Armenia.
"Over 2,000 memorial events will be conducted in hundreds of Russian cities. They will involve not only members of the numerous Armenian community, which has some 3 million members, but also thousands of people of other ethnicities," the Russian president said.