On March 31, the delegation led by the President of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France, Laurent Wauquiez visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial, accompanied by the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Paruyr Hovhannisyan and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Armenia to France Hasmik Tolmajyan, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute reports.
Harutyun Marutyan, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, welcomed the guests and presented the history of the creation of the memorial complex. He also referred to the three khachkars (cross-stones) erected in the Tsitsernakaberd area in memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak), Baku at the end of the last century, and the stories of the five freedom fighters of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war buried in front of Hushapat, stressing the link between what happened and the Armenian Genocide.
The members of the delegation from France laid flowers on the khachkars and graves, paying their respect to the memory of the victims of the anti-Armenian policy implemented by the Azerbaijani authorities.
Laurent Wauquiez laid a wreath at the monument commemorating the victims of the Armenian Genocide, then the guests placed flowers near the eternal fire and honored the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide with a minute of silence.
Laurent Wauquiez stressed that the warm Armenian-French relations have a centuries-old history and that France should do everything to prevent another genocide against the Armenians.
Harutyun Marutyun thanked Mr. Wauquiez for standing by Armenia.
At the end of the visit, the French delegation was also in the Park of Remembrance, where Laurent Wauquiez watered the silver fir tree he had planted in 2019.
