23.09.2025


On 23 September, an Italian delegation visiting Armenia to participate in the 108th NATO Parliamentary Assembly Rose-Roth Seminar — including Members of the Chamber of Deputies, Senators of the Italian Parliament and other representatives — visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex, accompanied by Maria Karapetyan, Head of the Armenia–Italy Friendship Group in the National Assembly of Armenia.

The guests were received by Lusine Abrahamyan, Deputy Director for Museum Affairs at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute. She guided the delegation through the Memorial Complex, presenting the history of its creation. Abrahamyan also highlighted the three khachkars (cross-stones) commemorating Armenians who fell victim to massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in Sumgait, Kirovabad (Ganzak) and Baku at the end of the last century, as well as the five freedom fighters buried opposite the Memorial Wall during the Artsakh Liberation War — underscoring the link between those events and the Armenian Genocide.

Members of the Italian delegation laid flowers at the Eternal Flame and observed a minute of silence in memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide.

Abrahamyan then led the visitors to the Memorial Wall, where, in special niches, small urns contain soil taken from the graves of foreign public figures, political leaders, intellectuals and missionaries who, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, raised their voices against the mass massacres and genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman authorities against the Armenians. The delegation showed particular interest in the activities of Pope Benedict XV and Giacomo Gorrini, the Italian Consul in Trabzon in 1915, noted for their support of the Armenians.

The visit concluded with a tour of the Armenian Genocide Museum, where the delegation viewed the permanent and temporary exhibitions before signing the Guest of Honor Book.