A delegation led by Brendan Henrehen, Director of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial on September 12.
The guests were welcomed by Edita Gzoyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, and accompanied to the Armenian Genocide Memorial, presenting the history of the creation of the Memorial. The AGMI Director also touched upon the three khachkars installed in the area of Tsitsernakaberd in memory of the Armenians who fell victim to the massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak), and Baku at the end of the last century, and the stories of the five freedom fighters buried in front of the Memorial during the Artsakh War, emphasizing the connection between what happened and the Armenian Genocide.
Mr. Brendan Henrehen laid a wreath at the Memorial commemorating the victims of the Armenian Genocide, and then the guests laid flowers at the eternal flame. They observed a minute of silence in honor of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide.
Edita Gzoyan accompanied them to the Memorial Wall, behind which, in special niches, are small jars filled with soil taken from the graves of several foreign public figures, politicians, intellectuals, and missionaries who raised their voices of protest against the mass massacres and genocide of Armenians committed by the Turkish government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Speaking about the pro-Armenian activities of Henry Morgenthau and Clara Barton, she emphasized that thanks to their work, the American public was well aware of the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the United States was also a tribute to the memory of these people.
Expressing gratitude for the visit, AGMI Director Edita Gzoyan presented Mr. Brendan Henrehen with books about the Armenian Genocide.
