RA premier, NA speaker condemn burning of Turkish flag in Yerevan`s  Republic Square

ArmInfo. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan condemned the burning of the Turkish flag in Yerevan's Republic Square. This was stated by his press secretary,  Nazeli Baghdasaryan.

In an interview with the state news agency Armenpress, Baghdasaryan  stated that Pashinyan condemns this practice, calling it  irresponsible and unacceptable. "Burning the flag of an  internationally recognized state, especially a neighboring country,  cannot be assessed any differently by the head of state. This is  clearly provocative behavior that provokes tensions," she added.

Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan also condemned the flag  burning, stating that "burning the flag of any country, especially a  neighboring country, on the eve of April 24 is a senseless, shameful,  and extremely reprehensible act that casts a shadow on the meaning of  April 24." "This is about memory, unity, and life, and I consider  such actions pathetic and unacceptable provocations against peace and  the future," Simonyan wrote on his Telegram channel.

It should be noted that traditionally, before the torchlight  procession in Republic Square commemorating the victims of the  Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, the flags of Azerbaijan and  Turkey, both of which pursued genocidal policies against Armenians,  are burned. It is noteworthy that only the Turkish flag was burned in  the square the day before. The torchlight procession is organized  annually by the youth wing of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation  (ARF) "Dashnaktsutyun."

It should be added that in early 2025, the Armenian Prime Minister,  at a meeting with representatives of the Armenian community in  Switzerland, questioned the fact of the Armenian Genocide in the  Ottoman Empire. "We must understand what happened and why it  happened. And how we perceived it, through whom we perceived it: how  did it happen that in 1939 there was no agenda for the Armenian  Genocide, but in 1950 it appeared? How this happened, we should  understand or should not understand," the Armenian Prime Minister  noted. Independent experts are inclined to believe that he is either  unaware that the term "genocide" was coined by genocide scholar  Raphael Lemkin only in 1944, or he is deliberately trying to create a  narrative that "this issue was artificially raised by the Soviet  Union to put pressure on Turkey."