June 8, 2007 - 15:07 AMT
ANCA welcome Chilean Senate's recognition of Armenian Genocide
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) welcomed the Chilean Senate's unanimous passage of legislation recognizing the Armenian Genocide and urging its government to support a key 1985 United Nations Subcommission report properly describing this crime against humanity as a clear instance of genocide.

"We join with Armenians in Chile, throughout South America, and around the world in welcoming Chilean Senate's recognition of the Armenian Genocide," said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

"The Chilean government's principled stand further isolates Turkey and shines the spotlight of international public opinion on the remaining countries - the United States sadly among them - that insist upon remaining complicit in Ankara's shameful campaign of genocide denial," he said.

June 5 the Chilean government unanimously made a decision to condemn the Armenian Genocide. The document reads, in part, "April 24, 1915 the Turkish government arrested and killed the leaders of the Armenian people in Constantinople and thus initiated the policy of extermination of the Armenian nation. In 1915-1923 some 1.5 million of Armenians, who lived on their lands during centuries, were slaughtered. This extermination is named the first "ethnic cleansing" of the 20th century."