Minister Nikos Dendias: Countries should follow Rwanda’s example, admit ‘dark chapters’ of their past

Other countries should take note of Rwanda’s in dealing with genocide and admit the dark chapters and atrocities of their past, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said, after meeting with his Rwandan counterpart in Athens on Friday.

“Your visit today is taking place just one day after the Day of Remembrance of the Pontian Genocide. On this day we honour the memory of more than 350,000 Pontian Greeks that were slaughtered or displaced by Ottoman authorities 103 years ago. And we would like other countries, in our own wider region, to follow Rwanda’s shining example. To admit the dark chapters, to reconcile themselves with the past and apologise to the families of the victims of atrocities,” Dendias said after his meeting with Vincent Biruta.

The foreign minister said that Rwanda had become a global model for national reconciliation and that the Genocide Monument in Kigali, which he had visited in November, was a monument of global significance, where thousands of victims of the genocide that had claimed more than one million lives were buried.

“In very little time, one generation, President Kagame succeeded in uniting the country after such a traumatic experience, while at the same time keeping memory alive so that such atrocities are never repeated again in the future,” he said.

Dendias noted that Biruti’s visit to Greece was the first visit by a Rwandan foreign minister.

Bilateral relations, Dendias said, had gained new momentum following the signing of agreements by the foreign ministries of the two countries in Kigali and two more in Athens on Friday. He said the two sides were working on the signing of additional agreements in other sectors, such as tourism.