Nikos Androulakis, leader of Greece’s main socialist opposition party, has called for the international recognition of the Pontic Genocide – the massacre of ethnic Greeks by Ottoman Turks during World War I and the subsequent Greek-Turkish War.
Speaking on the sidelines of a commemorative event in Thessaloniki on Sunday, Androulakis stressed the “duty to fight with all our strength for the international recognition of the Pontic Genocide.”
“Only a strong collective memory can serve as a deterrent against similar atrocities, especially in an era when such nightmares still persist,” he said.
Greece officially recognized the killing of up to 370,000 Greeks living along the Black Sea coast between 1914 and 1923 as genocide in 1994, designating May 19 as an annual day of remembrance.
Most opposition parties have issued statements to mark the occasion. Turkey has consistently rejected the term “genocide” as unfounded.