Genocide has no justification - Putin
MOSCOW. April 22 (Interfax) - The international community must do everything in its power to prevent a repeat of atrocities similar to the genocide of the Armenian people, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"April 24, 1915, is a mournful date, related to one of the most horrendous and dramatic events in human history, the genocide of the Armenian people," Putin said in a letter to the attendees of the World Without Genocide commemorative event, a text of which was posted on the Kremlin website.
"One hundred years on, we are bowing our heads in memory for all the victims of this tragedy, which in our country has always been perceived as our own pain and misfortune," the president said.
"Russia's position always was and remains objective and consistent: there can be no justification for ethnically-motivated mass extermination. The international community should do all it can to prevent such atrocities from happening anywhere ever again," Putin stressed.
New generations of Armenians and other ethnicities in the region should live in peace and harmony, without knowing the horrors that result from the incitement of religious hatred, aggressive nationalism and xenophobia, Putin said.
"I wish peace and wellbeing to our fraternal Armenia and all Armenians living in Russia," the president said.
