HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – On Saturday, theArmenian Social Council and Armenian military force commemorated the 106th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Tel Goran, in the countryside of Hasakah city, northeast Syria.
24 April 1915 is held as the starting date of the genocide, since on that day Ottoman authorities arrested and deported from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to the region of Angora (Ankara) around 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. Most were murdered.
The Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass murder and expulsion of more than 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turkey, according to historical documents.
Manuel Demir, the commander of northeast Syria’s Armenian military force known as the Martyr Nubar Ozanyan Brigade, said that “we, as an Armenian military force, celebrate this memory to deliver a message to the world that we have not forgotten and we will not forget what happened to our Armenian ancestors at the hands of the Ottoman Empire…we reject and denounce the ongoing Turkish aggressions, which are similar to the criminal policy of the Ottoman Empire of 1915.”
He added that the genocide was not committed against Armenians only, and that its massacres in Syria, whether by its occupation of Ras al-Ain (Sere Kaniye), Tel Abyad, or Afrin, and its continuous attacks on Ain Issa, confirm the restoration of Ottoman politics and its massacres.
Arif Qasabiyan, of the Armenian Social Council, says that “the extermination was committed against other peoples such as the Romani, Syriacs, Assyrians, and Kurds.”
“The Ottoman policy continues to exterminate the rights of other peoples and eliminate their cultures, histories and languages, as in Shengal, Sere Kaniye, Tel Abyadand Afrin.”
Its worth mentioning that the European Union parliament voted “by a wide majority” on 16th April 2015 overwhelmingly in favor of recognizing the mass-murder of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey as a genocide, commemorating the centennial of the genocide.