Yerevan Bars French-Armenian Leaders, Clergy From Attending New Paris Embassy Opening

The co-chairs of the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations in France (CCAF), the Primate of the France Diocese Bishop Grigor Khachatryan and Artsakh’s representative in France Hovhaness Gevorkyan were among French-Armenian community leaders barred by the Armenian Government from attending the opening of Armenia’s new embassy in Paris.

The ceremony took place on Tuesday with Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan joined by his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot and other dignitaries.

The Armenian government specifically excluded the CCAF’s two co-chairs Ara Tornian and Mourad Papazian, who is also a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Bureau.
The CCAF issued a statement on Tuesday decrying the exclusion of French Armenian community and religious leaders.

“An embassy represents the Armenian state and, beyond that, the entire Armenian people in all their diversity,” the CCAF said in its statement. “It is the common home of a whole nation, the place where Armenia represents itself in its fullness, diversity and dignity beyond the disagreements of the moment and partisan calculations.”

“By excluding prominent representatives of the Armenian community in France, the Armenian government is forsaking its mission of uniting the nation. Such behavior is puzzling,” the CCAF continued.

“To exclude Ara Toranian and Mourad Papazian, individuals whose names are inextricably linked to the decades-long struggle for the memory, recognition of the Armenian Genocide and preserving the dignity of the Armenian people, is to have a limited understanding of the true role of the Diaspora. The CCAF is not just an ordinary organization. It is the main representative structure of Armenians in France. To deprive democratically elected leaders is to deprive a significant part of the organized sector of the Diaspora,” the CCAF said.

“To exclude Bishop Grigor Khachatryan means to deeply offend the Armenian Apostolic Church, a centuries-old institution that has survived massacres, genocide, and the dispersion of the nation and to this day remains an important pillar of the Armenian Nation,” the CCAF statement added.

“Let us recall, incidentally, that since 1995, the Armenian Apostolic Church has been providing the current building to the Armenian Embassy free of charge,” the statement emphasized.

“To exclude Artsakh’s representative in France, Hovhannes Gevorgyan, means to send a negative message to French political circles about efforts to protect the rights of 120,000 Artsakh Armenians who have been forcefully displaced from their homeland into exile, and deprived of all rights. At a time when the Artsakh issue remains an open wound in the global Armenian consciousness, this step takes on a particularly heavy resonance,” the CCAF emphasized.

The organization called on immediate clarification by official Yerevan on its decision to exclude key facets of the French-Armenian community.

The CCAF is seen as one of the most influential Armenian organizations in France. Its annual events have been attended by high-level French officials, including past and current presidents of the country.

Toranian and Papazian in recent years have accompanied President Emmanuel Macron of France to annual Armenian Genocide commemoration events.