Federal parliamentarian John Alexander MP rose in Australia’s House of Representatives and reflected on the one-year anniversary of Azerbaijan’s unprovoked attacks against the indigenous Armenian Republic of Artsakh as a tragic reminder of the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).
Alexander is Member for Bennelong – Australia’s largest Armenian-populated electorate – and an inaugural signatory to the Australian Friends of Artsakh network. The former world-ranked tennis champion became the first Federal Australian politician to visit the Republic of Artsakh in 2019, and is also a supporter of the Joint Justice Initiative of the Armenian-Australian, Assyrian-Australian and Greek-Australian communities calling for national recognition of the 1915 Genocides.
In his speech to parliament on 26th October 2021, Alexander recounted: “When I visited Artsakh in 2019, I was struck by the normality of the place in an area constantly threatened by its neighbour. I was amazed by the hardiness and resilience of the people in the towns I visited.”
“But just a year later we saw tragic images of roads clogged with refugees—a direct juxtaposition of images taken nearly 100 years earlier of the victims of the Armenian genocide,” added Alexander, who is also Chair of the Australian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities.
Alexander also expressed concern over the ongoing humanitarian and political crisis unfolding as a result of Azerbaijan's attacks against the Armenian homeland last year.
“Since then I have heard reports of 1...
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