We reject the statements of the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis delivered at the “International Conference on the Crime of Genocide” held in Athens on 6 December 2019. His statements concerning our past and present are devoid of any base and its hostile tone is laden with lies and slander.

Should the Greek leadership, which seems unable to overcome the then Greek occupying forces being driven into the Aegean during the Turkish War of Independence, wish to face its past, the starting point ought to be the report of the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry which recorded the war crimes of the Greek Army during its invasion of Anatolia, as well as the articles of the Lausanne Peace Treaty which sentenced Greece to pay compensation for massacres and atrocities committed against the Turks.

We invite the Greek leadership to follow in the steps of the Greek Prime Minister Venizelos who nominated our great leader, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who fought against the invading Greek army, for the Nobel Peace Prize, by setting aside fanciful ideologies and embrace the principles of friendship and good neighborliness.