President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan along with dignitaries and American actor and activist George Clooney visited a hilltop memorial complex in Yerevan Sunday dedicated to the 1.5 million Armenians massacred a century ago by Ottoman Turks.
Official commemorations are being augmented this year by Clooney’s presentation of a new award.
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Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
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Turkey however denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
Clooney has been a prominent voice in favor of countries recognizing the killings as genocide, which the United States has not done.
Later on Sunday he will present the first Aurora Prize award recognizing an individual’s work to advance humanitarian causes.