Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
First of all I would like to join the previous speakers in thanking the panelists for their comprehensive
presentations.
We all agree unanimously that genocide, heinous crimes, unfortunately, are not issues of the past and
minorities groups are still the first target.
We appreciate all the draft recomendations provided, which are mainly based on the provisions of key
international instruments such as the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to national or
ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, the Convention on the Prevention and the Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide, and the Final Declaration of the 2005 World Summit.
Consequently, I also would like to mention another UN document – Resolution 22-22 on the
Prevention of Genocide, that focuses on identifying the root causes of genocide and spotting warning
signs in order to prevent or reduce the risk of genocide.
We must all be vigilants about indicators of an upcoming disaster and we must be able to recognize
them in order to act in time. In this regard, all the signs earlier collected by the Special Adviser on the
Prevention of Genocide are of primordial importance.
Marginalization policies, exclusions, discriminations and humiliations of a specific group and of minority
populations, hate speech, incitement to hatred, destruction of property belonging to the minority, of its
cultural and religious sites, the abusive interpretation of customs, are all warning signs and should be
given immediate and appropriate response from the international community. We must all be vigilant
about the increasing threats, where legitimization and institutionalization of discrimination against a
specific minority group is gaining ground.
The fight for the prevention of genocide is a particularly sensitive issue to the Armenian people who
suffered the first genocide of the 20th century with more than 1.5 million victims. The Armenian minority
of the Ottoman Empire had long been experiencing discrimination at all levels of public life. Considered