Recognition
The Greek Genocide is commemorated annually on 14 September by the international Greek Diaspora. Greek Law 2645/98 recognizes the Greek Genocide and declares September 14th as a day of commemoration.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide, have also affirmed the 1914-1923 Greek Genocide. Numerous U.S. States also recognize the Greeks of Ottoman Turkey were subjected to genocide.
The current Turkish Government vehemently denies that the Greek Genocide took place and claims that inter-ethnic fighting and the turmoil of the World War resulted in the destruction of the Greek element in Ottoman Turkey. Similarly, the Turkish Government denies that the extermination of the Armenian and Aramaean/Assyrian minorities were acts of genocide. However, some past administrations and rulers of Turkey have acknowledged their government did carry out a plan to exterminate the Greeks. The founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, involved in the later stages of the genocidal campaign, said in a 1926 interview with a Swiss reporter that "these holdovers from the Young Turkey Party should be made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred". Damad Ferid, the Turkish Grand Vizier, described Turkey's policy of extermination against the Christians at the Paris Peace Conference as crimes "such as to make the conscience of mankind shudder with horror for ever."
Resolutions and Decrees:
The following table is a list of some of the parliaments, states, NGO's and other bodies who have passed and adpoted legislation or issued formal resolutions and decrees affirming the genocide of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire:
1 Parliament of South Australia, Australia 2 State of Rhode Island, United States 3 International Association of Genocide Scholars 4 Armenian National Committee of America 5 Academic Council of the State Engineering University of Armenia 6 City of Chicago, Illinois, United States 7 State of Illinois, United States 8 State of New York, United States 9 Senate of the State of New York, United States 10 City of Cleveland, Ohio, United States 11 Florida House of Representatives, Florida, United States 12 Florida Senate, Florida, United States 13 Attorney General of the State of Florida, United States 14 City of Norwalk, Connecticut, United States 15 Senate of the State of Pennsylvania, United States 16 Pennsylvania General Assembly, Pennsylvania, United States 17 DeKalb County, Georgia, United States 18 City of Columbia, South Carolina, United States 19 Senate of the State of South Carolina, United States 20 State of South Carolina, United States 21 State of New Jersey, United States 22 Senate of the State of New York, United States 23 State of New York, United States 24 Greek Parliament, Greece 25 Greek Parliament, Greece 26 United States Senate