Athens asks Turkey to recognise Pontian genocide , Ankara wants compensation

By George Gilson

Athens has called on Turkey to recognise the genocide of the Pontian Greek population by the forces of Kemal Ataturk three days after the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide with mass m death Marches.

An estimated 350,000 Pontian Greeks were systematically killed and died of famine and disease during death marches designed to effect an ethnic and religious cleansing in Turkey.

The Pontian genocide is part of the broader, systematic ethnic cleansing of Turkey's Christian populations from the Ottomans at the end of the 19thcentury through the time of Kemal Ataturk in the 1920's.

The Christian population was an estimate 20 percent of the population toward the end of the Ottoman period and by 1924 that had plunged to two percent of the population.

Premier authority on genocide recognises Pontians'

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) in December, 2007, voted overwhelmingly to recognise the genocides inflicted on Assyrian and Greek populations of the Ottoman Empire between 1914 and 1923.

The resolution was as follows:

WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;

WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;

BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign...