• Source: List of visitors to Tsitsernakaberd

Tsitsernakaberd is the official memorial to the Armenian genocide victims in Yerevan, Armenia. It was opened in 1967 after a mass demonstration that took place in Yerevan on April 24, 1965, on the 50th anniversary of the deportation of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals from Constantinople that marked the beginning of the genocide. After Armenia's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the memorial became a part of official ceremonies. Since then, almost every foreign official who visited Armenia included a visit to the memorial to pay tribute to the victims of the genocide. A visit to Tsitsernakaberd often includes a tour in the nearby museum. Some notable visitors have planted trees at the memorial.
A wide range of politicians, artists, musicians, athletes, and religious figures have visited the memorial. The most notable ones include Presidents of Russia (Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev), France (Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande), Ukraine, Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Georgia, Iran, Belarus, Romania, Lebanon, Croatia, Serbia, and Prime Ministers of Bulgaria, Czech Republic and other countries. Foreign Ministers of many countries (including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several high-ranking officials of the European Union — including José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy) — have honored the victims by visiting Tsitsernakaberd. Other visitors include Pope John Paul II in 2001, Pope Francis in 2016, the Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger, the Primate of All England Rowan Williams, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill I of Moscow, World Chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, World football champion Youri Djorkaeff, English rock star Ian Gillan, Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, French actors Gérard Depardieu and Alain Delon, Nobel Prize winner in Physics Zhores Alferov.
No current Turkish state official has visited Tsitsernakaberd.




Significance and controversies


Armenian genocide recognition is one of the most important foreign policy issues of Armenia, and is the number one goal of the diaspora Armenian organizations. Many Armenians look at these visits as a sign of recognition of the genocide.




= Pope John Paul II's visit in 2001

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Pope John Paul II arrived in Yerevan on September 25, 2001, to participate in the celebrations of 1,700th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity as the national religion of Armenia. The Pope visited the memorial the next day after meeting with President Robert Kocharyan. He laid a wreath for the victims of the genocide, made a short speech, and read a prayer. The Pope used the term Metz Yeghern (the Armenian word for genocide, which literally translates as "Great Crime") in his prayer, causing a controversy regarding whether he recognized the events of 1915 as a genocide or not. Nevertheless, it aroused a wave of discontent in Turkey.




= Hillary Clinton's visit in 2010

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Yerevan on July 4, 2010, on America's independence day, thus becoming the highest-ranked American official to visit the country. Her visit was considered "to be symbolic but nonetheless significant" and her possible visit to Tsitsernakaberd became a subject of much discussion in the Armenian media. The United States had not yet recognized the Armenian Genocide officially and by visiting the genocide memorial, many thought that by her visit, the United States sent a clear political message to Turkey. She visited the memorial on July 5, before leaving for Tbilisi. The wreath that Clinton laid at the memorial read "From Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton" although it was first announced that her visit would be non-official.




= UN GA President, 2022

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Abdulla Shahid, President of the United Nations General Assembly, visited the memorial and the museum on July 27, 2022, and posted pictures of the visit to Twitter, however he later deleted the post. Turkey's Foreign Ministry stated that Shahid's visit "has been exploited with the purpose of exposing one-sided Armenian claims and it is in that context that he paid a visit to the so-called genocide memorial." Turkey said Shahid "would have been expected to act in a fair and impartial manner, to be more careful and responsible in this regard."




= Refusals

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Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited Armenia in September 2008 to attend a football match between the Armenian and Turkish national teams in Yerevan. Since the Turkish government denies the fact of genocide, he did not visit the memorial. Other presidents who opted not to pay a visit to Tsitsernakaberd were Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They refused to visit the memorial so as not to compromise their bilateral relationship with neighboring Turkey.
In 2010, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the Turkish President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), refused to visit the memorial stating, "it is my own decision. I respect your opinion and you should respect mine."




Politicians






= Monarchs

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King Abdullah II of Jordan (2020)




= Presidents

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= Vice-Presidents

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Bhairon Singh Shekhawat (2005)
Danilo Astori (2014)
Mohammad Hamid Ansari (2017)




= Prime Ministers

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= Speakers

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= Cabinet ministers

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Ministers of Foreign Affairs

Other ministers




= Other government officials

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= Members of Parliament / Congress

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= Regional and local

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U.S. State legislature and City Council members
Paul Krekorian, Los Angeles City Councilman (2004 and 2013)
John Pérez, Speaker of the California State Assembly (2013)
Katcho Achadjian, Member of the California State Assembly (2013)
Cheryl Brown, Member of the California State Assembly (2013)
Adrin Nazarian, Member of the California State Assembly (2013)
Scott Wilk, Member of the California State Assembly (2013)
Bob Blumenfield, Los Angeles City Councilman (2013)
Governors
Boris Gromov, Governor of Moscow Oblast (2008)
Georgy Boos, Governor of Kaliningrad (2009)
Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of Saint Petersburg (2015)
Mayors
Gürbüz Çapan — Esenyurt, Istanbul Province, Turkey (1995)
Yury Luzhkov — Moscow, Russia (2003, 2005)
Jacques Peyrat — Nice, France (2007)
Jean-Claude Gaudin — Marseille, France (2007, 2013)
Gérald Tremblay — Montreal, Canada (2010, 2011)
Bertrand Delanoë — Paris, France (2011)
Osman Baydemir — Diyarbakır, Turkey (2014)
Maysar Haji Salih — Shangal, Iraq (2015)
Delegation of twelve mayors from Germany (2015)
Bekir Kaya – Van, Turkey (2015)
Huseyin Olan – Bitlis, Turkey (2015)
Ozcan Birlik – Mutki, Turkey (2015)
Mehmet Emin Özkan – Güroymak, Turkey (2015)
Avtandil Nemsitsveridze – Mtskheta, Georgia (2015)
Anne Hidalgo – Paris, France (2016)




Leaders or delegations from international organizations


René van der Linden, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2005)
Vladimir Rushailo, Executive Secretary of CIS (2005, 2007)
Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (2007)
Kōichirō Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO (2008)
Wilfried Martens, President of the European People's Party (2010)
Abdou Diouf, Secretary General of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (2010)
Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (2010)
Petros Efthymiou, President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (2011)
Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament (2011)
Jean-Claude Mignon, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2013)
Herwig van Staa, President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (2013)
Yuri Fedotov, Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2013)
Majed el-Shafie, President and founder of One Free World International (2014)
Delegation from the All-China Women's Federation (2014)
Delegation from the European Jewish Parliament (2014)
Jean-Paul Wahl, European Regional Head of the Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie (2015)
Anne Brasseur, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2015)
Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (2015)
Delegation from the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) (2015)
Nikolay Bordyuzha, General Secretary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (2015)
Joseph Daul, President of the European People's Party (2015)
Members of the Executive Bureau of the Democrat Youth Community of Europe (DEMYC) (2015)
Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations Office in Geneva (2015)
Delegation from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (2015)
Delegation from the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2015)
Michaëlle Jean, Secretary General of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (2015, 2018)
Marija Pejčinović Burić, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (2022)
Abdulla Shahid, President of the United Nations General Assembly (2022)




= European Union

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Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council (2012)
José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission (2012)
Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (2015)
Charles Michel, President of the European Council (2021)




Religious figures



Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (1996)
Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia (1996)
Pope John Paul II (2001)
Pope Shenouda III, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (2003)
Stephen Blaire, Bishop of Stockton (2003)
Robert Edward Mulvee, Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island (2003)
Basil H. Losten, Bishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (2003)
Nicholas Samra, Auxiliary of the Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy of Newton, Massachusetts (2003)
John Joseph Nevins, Bishop of Venice, Florida (2003)
Howard James Hubbard, Bishop of Albany, New York (2003)
William Henry Keeler, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore (2003)
Yona Metzger, Chief Rabbi of Israel (2005)
Danny Rich, Chief Executive of Liberal Judaism (2007)
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England (2007)
Cardinal Bertone, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church and Secretary of State of The Vatican (2008)
Kirill I, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia (2010)
Mir Tahsin Beg, religious leader of the Yazidis (2012)
Theodore Edgar McCarrick, American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (2015)
Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church (2014)
Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (2011, 2014)
Helga Haugland Byfuglien, Bishop of the Church of Norway (2015)
Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, Patriarch of Antioch, and head of the Maronite Church (2015)
Kurt Koch, Swiss cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (2015)
John X, Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All The East (2015)
Pope Tawadros II, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (2015)
Christopher Hill, retired British bishop and president of the Conference of European Churches (2015)
Richard Chartres, Bishop of London (2015)
Robert Innes, Bishop in Europe (2015)
Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches (2015)
Pope Francis (2016)




Other notables






See also


Armenian genocide
Armenian genocide recognition




References

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• List of visitors to Tsitsernakaberd
• Tsitsernakaberd
• Hasan Cemal
• Armenian genocide recognition
• 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide
• Armenian genocide in culture
• Anna Chapman
• Yad Vashem
• Yerevan
• Armenia