DECLARATION
July 2, 2006
The members of the
Pan-Macedonian Association, Inc. USA, in a duly convened meeting at their 60th
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 20th 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 20th 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.