Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rai said Thursday that “if the International Community fails to recognize the Armenian genocide, other similar mass massacres will be committed,” adding that several massacres have been recently committed while the International Community remained silent.
During his visit to Armenia, Rai noted that “such attacks cannot be justified, whether politically or economically,” stressing the need to “recognize our sins to reach repentance and compensation.”
Meanwhile, Rai continued his participation in the activities held on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, within the framework of the global forum “Against the crime of Genocide,” which was inaugurated on Wednesday in the presence of the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Catholicos Karekin II, as well as top Armenian officials, church leaders and foreign guests.
Patriarch Rai arrived to Armenia on Tuesday to attend the centenary commemoration of the Armenian genocide.
On April 24, Armenians in Armenia and the diaspora, including Lebanon, will mark the 100th anniversary of the launching of a campaign of genocide by Ottoman armies in World War I to wipe them out of Anatolia.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event generally regarded by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey however, denies that the deaths constituted genocide, noting that the death toll has been exaggerated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.