DECLARATION

July 2, 2006

The members of the Pan-Macedonian Association, Inc. USA, in a duly convened meeting at their 60^th National Convention held on June 29 to July 2, 2006 in the city of Las Vegas, NV, USA, Declare the Recognition of the “Greek Pontian Genocide” committed by the Ottomans and the Turkish Government in the early part of the 20^th Century.

The Armenians and Assyrians are not the only people in Asia Minor who suffered from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. 

US Ambassador Morgenthau in 1918 stated, “The Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea”.

The Ethnic cleansing of the Christian Pontian population and of the rest of the Hellenes in Asia Minor reveals the Kemalist brutality in the 20^th century. 

When Greece and Turkey signed the Convention regarding the exchange of Greek Christian and Muslim populations on January 30, 1923, which was incorporated in the Treaty of Lausanne of July 25, 1923, hundreds of thousands of Greek Orthodox Christians were to be allowed to remain in Constantinople/Istanbul and the surrounding area of Eastern Thrace and on the Islands of Imvros and Tenedos. However by continuous pogroms, persecution and harassment, fewer than 1500 Greek Orthodox Christians remain today in Constantinople/Istanbul. 

These historical facts must be made known to the people of the world.

Historical tragedies such as the “Greek Pontian Genocide” must be Recognized by Turkey.  

The world community ought to always remember this Genocide and never allow such Genocides to ever be repeated or forgotten, anywhere in the world.