AZG Armenian Daily #102, 30/05/2008

Genocide

"THREE GENOCIDES AND ONE GENERAL STRATEGY"

Turkey condemns Greece for commemoration of the victims of Pontic
Greek Genocide

Turkish Foreign Ministry severely condemned Greece on May 26 for the
"Commemoration day of the victims of Pontic Greek Genocide".

It is mentioned in the statement that the events of the commemoration
day of the "so-called" Pontic Genocide organized corresponding to the
law adopted by the Greece parliament on February 24, 1994, contradict
the spirit of dialogue and cooperation of the two countries.

The statement cites, "We severely condemn that because of the
mentioned events our country and its founder Ataturk has become
targets of them. We notice with surprise that this approach is
incongruous with commonsense as it comes from the misunderstanding of
the history. Participation of the members of Greece parliament,
leaders of political parties, representatives of local authorities and
Greece government in this year’s events evidently shows who support
the baseless allegations against our country".

To recall, according to February 24, 1994 decision of the Greece
parliament May 19 was proclaimed Day of Pontic Greek Genocide.

What about the commemoration events of the victims of Pontic Genocide
this year they started on May 18 with the holy mass in Aya Sofia
Church of Thessalonica and lasted a week, among them an event under
heading "Three genocides and one general strategy".

By the way, only Turkish Public TV mentioned of the event verbally
without touching upon it on the website. For that reason the details
of the event are not available. But we suppose that "the genocides of
1915-1923" refer to Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks, and "one
general strategy" assumes the international recognition of those
genocides.

By Hakob Chakrian, translated by L.H.