THE ARMENIANS OF CYPRUS 15 socioeconomically to the development of Cyprus. On 24 April 1975, Cyprus became the first European country (and the second world-wide, after Uruguay) to recognise the Armenian Genocide with Resolution 36/1975 of the House of Representatives. Cyprus was also the first country to bring the issue before the UN General Assembly on 21 January 1965. Over the past decades, the dynamics of the Armenian- Cypriot community have changed with the increased number of marriages with Greek-Cypriots and the arrival over the last 35-40 years of a large number of Armenian political and economic immigrants, because of the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990), the insurgencies in Syria (1976-1982), the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Iran-Iraq war (1978-1988), as well as after the Spitak earthquake (1988) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991). According to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, Armenian was recognised as a minority language of Cyprus as of 1 December 2002. Finally, on 3 April 2015 Cyprus became the fourth country in the world to criminalise denial of the Armenian Genocide, with Law 45(I)/2015, which was published in the Government Gazette on 9 April 2015. l The first Genocide march in Nicosia (1975). l Two Armenians escaping to the government-controlled sector of Nicosia after the 1963-1964 intercommunal troubles and their eviction from the Armenian quarter of the city. l Archbishop Makarios III and Catholicos Khoren I inaugurate Nicosia’s Nareg School (1972).