A sea of flowers blanketed the cold concrete of the brutalist memorial to the Armenian genocide on the Tsitsernakaberd hill, overlooking the capital Yerevan. Tens of thousands went there on Thursday to mourn the victims of World War I-era mass murders of ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.

But this time, the annual Genocide Remembrance Day was marked not only with grief, but also with some discontent that the Armenian government has stopped vociferously pushing for countries to recognise the massacres as a genocide amid progress in talks with Azerbaijan and Turkey.

According to Yerevan, up to 1.5 million people died between 1915 and 1916, when the Ottoman authorities, struggling on the battlefield, carried out repressions against the Christian Armenian minority, whom it viewed as pro-Russian traitors.

They were either killed or sent on deadly marches into the Syrian desert, deprived of food and water.

Turkey does not recognize this as genocide and denies the murders were systemic. It estimates Armenian deaths at 300,000-500,000 and claims that as many Turks died in civil strife after........

© International Business Times