Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The following statement was delivered by His Holiness Vazken I, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, over Yerevan State Television following the bloody confrontation on July 5-6, 1988, at Yerevan's International Airport in which Armenian activists and Soviet troops clashed.
My beloved people, citizens of our mother country, at this hour of trial, I, Catholicos of All Armenians, address all of you from Holy Etchmiadzin. First, I must express my condolences to all those who suffered on July 5 this year during the events that took place near Zvartnots International Airport. I was told that one of [the activists] died. I pray for his soul, and grieve over his death together with his relatives. I also deeply regret that our soldiers were among the wounded.
1. The English translation work prepared by the Soviet Novosti Press Agency, and appears in The Armenian Reporter, July 28, 1988: 2.Google Scholar
2. Mount Ararat is where Bible and legend have it that Noah and his ark landed. The Assyrian Urartu refers to a powerful state founded on the Armenian highlands, in the 9th Century B.C. In the 6th century B.C., the kingdom of Urartu collapsed, and was succeeded by the kingdom of Armenia.Google Scholar