Cyprus Parliament declares 19 May as Pontic Greek Remembrance Day

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Yesterday, 19 June, the Parliament of the Republic of Cyprus unanimously recognized 19 May as Pontic Greek Remembrance Day. The official designation comes after the introduction of a motion by MP Charalambos Theopemptou (Movement of Ecologists – Citizens’ Cooperation, KOSP) calling for institutional recognition of the genocide which was executed by the ruling Young Turks and the Kemalists between 1915 and 1923 in Asia Minor. The original motion with the same intention was submitted to parliament already in 2012.  

The motion contains a specific reference not only to the then ruling Young Turks but also to their successors, the Kemalists as responsible for crimes against Pontic Hellenism.  

MP Sotiris Ioannou and all members of his National People’s Front (ELAM) voted in favor of the bill. In his contribution in the parliamentary session Ioannou stated, “We honor the 353,000 Pontian brothers who were deliberately and brutally exterminated by the Turkish state.”  

Ioannou linked the Pontic Turkification to the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, emphasizing that it was the same policy. He emphasized that “Cypriots and Pontic Hellenes share the same wound and the need for revenge,” adding that the response to the Turkish crime is a commemoration.  

Read Also: World Council of Churches’ statement explicitly mentions Ottoman Genocide against Christian peoples, including the Pontic Greek  

MP Zacharias Kollias (Democratic Party, DIKO) focused on the historical involvement of Germany, claiming that they had been instigators of genocide since 1897. He pointed to the military cooperation between Germany and the Ottoman Empire and spoke of the systematic extermination of populations regarded as obstacles. He also stated that the Young Turks not only displaced the population, but also committed mass crimes against humanity like rape, crucifixion, and hanging.  

The Pontic Greek Genocide was instigated by the so-called Young Turks, officially the İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress or CUP) and the Turkish Nationalist movement, under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who established the Turkish Republic in 1923 as a successor to the Ottoman Empire.   

The Pontic Greek Genocide refers to the systematic extermination of the native Greek (Rûm) subjects of the Ottoman Empire before, during, and after World War I (1914–1923). It included massacres, forced relocations and death marches, summary expulsions, boycotts, rape, forced conversion to Islam, conscription into labor battalions, arbitrary executions and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical and religious monuments.