At the beginning of the 20th century, many massacres were carried out in the Middle East and Kurdistan by the ruling powers of the time.
The Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust (Jewish Genocide), the Anfal and Halabja massacres against Kurds in Southern Kurdistan, massacres in Northern Kurdistan such as Dersim, Amed, Agri, Geliyê Zilan and Roboski, the massacre of the Feyli Kurds, the decrees issued against the Yazidis, and dozens of crimes against humanity committed by occupying fascist forces are all considered within this context. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in these massacres.
One of these massacres was the Armenian Genocide carried out against the Armenian people.
What is genocide?
Genocide refers to all actions and their outcomes that aim to destroy one or more groups of people distinguished from others by race, ethnic origin, political opinion, religion, social status, or any other characteristic, with the sole purpose of extermination and killing.
Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer originally from Poland, dedicated his life to defining genocide as a crime in international law and coined the word “genocide.” In 1943, he created the word by combining the Greek word “genos,” meaning race, and the Latin word “cide,” meaning killing. He described the Armenian Massacre as genocide with the following words:
“I became interested in genocide because it had happened many times. It happened first to the Armenians, then Hitler did it to the Jews.”
The Armenian Genocide refers to the physical destruction of Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire from the spring of 1915 to the autumn of 1916. In 1915, about one and a half million Armenians lived in the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire. During the genocide, at least 664,000 and possibly close to 1.2 million people were killed through mass massacres, individual killings, systematic brutality, disease, and starvation.
Defeat of Ottomans and Armenians during the First World War used as pretext for genocide
The defeat of the Ottomans and Armenians during the First World War was used as a pretext for genocide. On November 2, 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of the Central Powers against the Allied Powers, opening the Middle Eastern front. Fighting on the Caucasus Front, the Iranian Front, and the Gallipoli Front affected several cities with dense Armenian populations. Before entering the war, the Committee of Union and Progress government sent a special delegation to the Erzurum Armenian Congress to present various demands to the Armenians. At this congress, they demanded that Armenians in Russia rise up against the Russian army in order to facilitate the Ottoman conquest of the South Caucasus when the Caucasus Front opened.
On December 24, 1914, War Minister Enver Pasha launched a plan to encircle and destroy the Russian Caucasus Army at Sarıkamış in order to reclaim lands lost in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. However, Ottoman forces were defeated and almost completely destroyed. When he returned to Istanbul, Enver Pasha blamed the Armenians and declared that the war had been lost because Armenians in the region had sided with the Russians.
The genocide was carried out under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress
The Ottoman state carried out mass killings with the support of auxiliary forces and civilians. The Ottoman government under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress aimed to strengthen the dominance of Muslim Turks in Central and Eastern Anatolia by eliminating the vast majority of Armenians in the region.
On April 24, 1915, 250 Armenian intellectuals and politicians were forcibly taken from their homes by the Special Organization, then exiled and killed. This date marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian people were largely destroyed after being expelled from the homeland where they had lived for thousands of years. Anatolia was “cleansed” of Christianity. As a result of the genocide, cultural properties and buildings were transformed through a general decree. The killing of the first detainees was undoubtedly a decision taken by Ottoman authorities and systematically implemented.
During the attacks of 1915, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes by the Ottoman Empire under the pretext that the Armenian community would rebel and were sent to remote areas of the Syrian desert. More than 200,000 young women and children were forcibly abducted.
Official recognition of the “Armenian Genocide” first took place in 1965
More than 30 countries have recognized or officially accepted the massacres that occurred in 1915 as the “Armenian Genocide.” Among these countries are Uruguay (the first country to recognize it, in 1965), Germany, France, Russia, Canada, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Greece, and the United States (at the presidential level).
Countries such as Lebanon, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, the Vatican, and Syria have also recognized the genocide. These recognitions were generally made through decisions by parliaments or statements by heads of state.
The Republic of Turkey does not officially recognize the genocide
The Republic of Turkey does not recognize the massacre that took place in 1915 during the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Turkey’s official position on this issue is that the deportation of Armenians in 1915 was a “security measure” taken against Armenian groups who cooperated with Russia against the Ottoman army.
Turkey defines these events not as genocide but as a tragedy in which both sides suffered losses during wartime, or as a period of “mutual suffering.” For this reason, in official discourse in Turkey the term “genocide” is generally replaced with expressions such as “the events of 1915” or “so-called genocide claims.”
Armenians in Rojava Kurdistan
With the Rojava Revolution, many peoples and communities joined the struggle to protect their existence, and one example was the establishment of the Armenian Battalion.
The aim was to strengthen the revolution in Rojava by the Armenian people, who had faced massacres and exile during the genocide, and especially to defend Rojava against the attacks of the occupying Turkish state and the gangs of ISIS. Within this framework, based on the idea that “if a people does not have an army, that people is nothing,” an organized force was formed to protect both the Armenian people and all peoples living in Rojava.
In the town of Til Temir in Rojava Kurdistan, on April 24, the 104th anniversary of the genocide, the establishment of the “Nubar Ozanyan Armenian Battalion” was announced.
In Rojava there is also the Armenian Social Council, an autonomous body established to revive Armenian heritage in the region and to protect culture and language. Operating within the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, this council carries out activities that include both Christian and Muslim Armenians.
The council aims to confront the legacy of the genocide and strengthen the Armenian presence in the region.
The establishment of the Armenian Union Party
Armenians in North and East Syria also announced the establishment of the Armenian Union Party at a conference held on December 19, 2025.
The party’s goals for the future include ensuring Armenian representation in the new Syria, strengthening cooperation between Armenians and all faith groups, and developing relations with democratic forces in the region.
Its objectives also include working to rebuild Armenian national and cultural identity, establishing communication bridges with Armenian parties abroad, developing relations with international institutions concerned with the protection of minorities, and building balanced relations with regional and international countries that will contribute to peace in Syria.
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