PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Rhode Island officials gathered at the Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church to commemorate the 108th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Mayor Brett Smiley, Senator Jack Reed and Governor Dan McKee joined the Armenian Martyrs’ Memorial Committee to remember the 1.5 million people who died in the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

The keynote address was given buy historian and sociologist Dr. Taner Akçam, who is one of the first Turkish intellectuals to acknowledge and openly discuss the genocide.