Greek Prime Minister calls for Recognition of Pontus-Greek Genocide by Ottomans

ATHENS – At the International Conference on the Crime of Genocide held in Athens on 6-8 December, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on the international community to recognize the genocide on the Pontus-Greeks and other Christians in the Ottoman empire in 1915. The Greek call comes at a time of great tensions between Turkey and Greece over Turkey’s aggressive maritime politics. On 27 November, Turkey signed a deal with the internationally recognized government of Libya on new mutual maritime boundaries claiming parts of the Mediterranean which are also claimed by other countries around the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean. This angered Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel. Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador. According to Mitsotakis, the Turkish-Libyan agreement is nothing more than a cunning plan to change the maritime boundaries of the Mediterranean Sea and is against international law.

This is the first time the Greek prime minister has attended the conference on genocide. The International Conference on the Crime of Genocide was organized by the Pan-Pontian Federation in Greece and two of the many speakers at the conference were researchers Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi. Morris and Ze’evi are the writers of the book The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924.

The president of the Pan-Pontian Federation of Greece, Georgios Varythimiadis, said that, “the grandchildren of the Martyrs of the genocide – the Greeks, Armenians and Syriacs, need to fight for recognition of the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman empire” and “our struggle is not only because of our historical trauma. The crimes of the past confirm the need to strengthen our struggle for recognition. Only through recognition of the genocide by the Ottomans can there be peace in the region. If the perpetrators of genocide are not punished and the international community remains silent, the perpetrators will again commit this crime.”