Taking into consideration that

• After the Turkic tribes invaded Armenia, the Armenians, undergoing cruel persecutions and massacres for centuries, especially in the period of sultan Hamid’s rule, were forced to leave their homeland and find shelter in foreign countries,
• The condition of Armenians became even more critical and the calls for help made by the Armenian leaders started to reach the world society.
• Finally the Ottoman Empire yielded under the outer pressure and had to agree to conduct reforms in Western Armenia, the enforcement of which in the conditions of control by Russia, France, England, was giving an opportunity of peaceful solution of the Armenian problem.

stating the fact that

• despite the centuries-long period of the occupation of Armenia and cruel torments, the Armenians lived centralized in the main regions of Western Armenia before World War I, staying the main native population of the Armenian Highland for hundreds of years.
• the Armenians did not manage to create their own reliable self-defence and mechanisms of providing national security, especially in critical moments, expecting the help of the Great Powers. But in the conditions resulting from the discrepancies between those Powers the Armenians appeared in helpless situation for resisting the challenge of the time.
• using the military state Turkish government executed the first genocide in the modern history, which took one and a half million Armenians’ lives
• the number of Armenians who stayed in their historical homeland is not clear.
• according to some reports there are from two to three million descendants of Armenians who were forcedly Turkishized or converted Islam in Western Armenia and the number of ultimate heirs of Western Armenians in the world is about seven million,
• even after the Genocide there still remained the opportunity to create conditions for punishing its facilitators and for national and state revival of the Armenians. Turkey was defeated; the court in Constantinople sentenced the leaders of the Young Turks to death. According to Sevres peace treaty on august 10, 1920, Turkey, like other allies, recognized the independence of Armenia in the vilayets of Erzurum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis with access to the Black sea, entitling the president of the USA to make the final specification of borders and disarm the neighbouring Turkish territories.
• in 1917 and 1919 the representatives of western Armenians held two conferences in Yerevan to defend their rights. In spite of some efforts, nevertheless, they didn’t manage to build a united Armenian government, consisting of eastern and western Armenians’ representatives. 12 delegates from western Armenians, elected by legislature, which was created on February 13, in a panel session of the second conference, took their places in the parliament of the Republic of Armenia in order to solve problems in circles of the government agencies of the Republic of Armenia.
• The October counter-revolutionary take-over in Russia, the betrayal of the own national interests and the allied obligations made by its Soviet leaders, unscrupulousness of the Great Powers, the weakness of the League of Nations, the absence of powerful Armenian factor let the Turkish escape responsibility. Eleven more, the revanchists who took power in Turkey with the help of Bolsheviks aborted the implementation of the decisions of the Sevres treaty regarding the Armenians. Kemal Ataturk invaded Western Armenia again. Then the Turks, Bolsheviks and the Caucasian Tatars (the Azerbaijanis) divided Eastern Armenia, i.e Nakhijevan, Kars, Kharabakh, and left to Armenians just the part of Yerevan province as the Soviet Armenia.
• The attempt of even partial solution of the Armenian problem was failed at the Lausanne conference when the Turks refused to give territories for the western Armenian refugees’ return.
• A number of countries and organizations recognized the fact of the Armenian Genocide and the European parliament by the decision from July, 1987 demanded from the European Council “to put pressure on Turkish government to make it accept the fact of the Armenian Genocide, organized in 1915-1917, and encourage the dialogue between authorized representatives of Turkey and the Armenians”.

On the assumption that

• due to some objective and subjective reasons the western Armenians, unfortunately, did not manage to establish in time and keep the authorized representation, which would present their legal rights,
• the division of responsibilities and actions among the parts of all the Armenians will promote to the successful solution of national problems, will help to establish relations between the Republic of Armenia and neighbour countries, which in its turn will minimize its dependence on the probable consequences of the geopolitical conflict,
• the modern Republic of Armenia, which appeared after the second collapse of the Sovietised Russian Empire in one part of the Eastern Armenia, i.e. on the territory of the Soviet Armenia, which is twice smaller than the territory of the first Republic of Armenian, de jure is not the successor of the first republic and is not authorized by the western Armenian representative agencies to represent their rights and is not able to take over the mission of the solution of specific problems, considering the destiny and future of Western Armenia and the descendants of the western Armenians,
• yet it is impossible to expect from the government of nowadays Republic of Armenia the solution of the problems, which are out of their possibilities and the sphere of their direct obligations (the guarantee of the security and prosperity of the republic, the opposition to the claims of Azerbaijan on Artsakh and other Armenian territories).

the initiative group consider obligatory (late) the necessity of establishing the authorized representative agencies (national assembly, National Council, committees) of the successors of those who survived in the massacres in Western Armenia by gathering a Conference of the Western Armenians.

The initiative group, basing on the predicted responding to this call, will convene the first meeting of the organizing committee on December 9-10, 2006 in the suburb of Paris - Sevres.

The organizing committee will develop the order of the preparative conference delegates’ election, the agenda, the projects of the documents, which should be accepted, will define the place and time of the conference.

The preparative conference will elect temporary National council with its committees. The temporary National council will organize disputative elections in all possible places of residence of western Armenians in order to create nationally elected authorized western Armenians’ representative National assembly in the next conference consisting of delegates, elected through democratic elections. This assembly in its turn will elect the National council of western Armenians with the necessary committees.

To define the aims and issues of the authorized representative agencies of the successors of the Armenians who survived in the massacres in Western Armenia we think it expedient to present the following provisions, which are suggested by the initiative group for the discussion:

• To develop and execute such Pan-Armenian programmes and projects, which will promote to the fast development and strengthening of the present day Armenian nationhood, including Artsakh, the prosperity of the living standards of the people, the full realization of the free legal democracy, the organization of repatriation and the defence of the rights and interests of Armenians at the global level,
• To represent directly the legal rights and demands of western Armenians in international organizations, to negotiate with the Turkish and other interested sides to reach the acceptance, recognition of the fact of the Armenian Genocide, restitution and the return of the captured territories of Western Armenia.
• To take care about unobstructed and safe return of the successors of the Western Armenians to their historical homeland, i.e. Western Armenia.
• To promote to the preservation of the national character and consciousness of the Western Armenians in the Diaspora.
• To be coherent in the preservation and reconstruction of the monuments of Armenian culture in Western Armenia.
• To promote to the formation of modern Armenian political thinking, which will rest upon the real and scientific revaluation of the Armenian political history of the recent centuries, which will reflect defeats and losses as well as victories and achievements in Ottoman, Russian, Soviet empires and in Diaspora, and which will serve as basis for showing new, real, responsible thinking and acting, to develop and adopt modern Armenian political school for avoiding new defeats and losses, to assure new deeds of Armenian spirit and will.
• To promote to the formation of the independent Armenian factor in the international life, which will reflect the appearance of the financial-political powers resting on the union of the national capital and national intellectual power, which will assure the broad participation of the Armenians abroad in the formation of that factor and which will finally give the nation an opportunity to dispose its destiny itself.

Group of initiators
Abrahamyan Narek
Ashtchyan Gerayer
Dadrian Vahakn
Danielyan Anushavan (on personal initiative)
Demoyan Hayk
Djigarkhanyan Armen
Geyvandov Eduard
Gureghian Jean Varoujean
Haykazyan Eduard
Kaputikyan Silva
Kerkiacharian Agob
Kotanjyan Hayk (on personal initiative)
Koutcharian Gerayer
Magoyan Nune
Marashlian Vardan
Melikyan Vahan
Mikaelyan Karen
Mkrtumyan Aram
Petrosyan Vachagan
Sarafyan Gevorg
Sargsyan Sos
Shirikyan Artashes
Sirapian Jean Varoujan
Tarasov Artyom
Tashtchyan Vardan
Tchknavorian Archaluys
Zargarian Igor
Zargarian Ruben
Zeytuntsyan Pertch