ArmInfo. Former deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament Eduard Sharmazanov honored the memory of the victims of the genocide of the Pontic Greeks. "May 19 is the Day of Remembrance of the Pontic Greeks' genocide. On March 24, 2015, the Armenian parliament unanimously recognized and condemned this crime. We remember and demand," Sharmazanov wrote on his Facebook page.
It should be noted that May 19 is the Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of the Asia Minor Greeks by the Turks. In March 1915, in the vicinity of the city of Smyrna (now Izmir) and in the Black Sea Pontic region, the Young Turks carried out the massacre of the Greeks, who had been called up to the Turkish army shortly before. Ethnic cleansings against the Greek population of Turkey were actively carried out by Turkish nationalists and under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) during the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922. It was May 19, 1919, the day of the landing of Kemal in Samsun and the beginning of the second wave of massacre is celebrated as the day of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks. According to various estimates, the number of victims of the Greek genocide ranges from 350 thousand to 1.2 million people.