ISTANBUL. – Hundreds took part in a mourning event that got underway on Wednesday, April 24 at 19։15 (7:15pm), at Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The event was devoted to the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  

The participants paid tribute to the Genocide victims, lit candles, and placed carnations on the photographs of the Armenian intellectuals and political figures that were sent to their death on April 24, 1915, Istanbul’s Agos Armenian bilingual weekly reports.  

During the commemoration event, well-known Turkish professor, Gencay Gursoy, delivered remarks during which he condemned the first genocide of the 20th century and stressed that even though 98 years have passed since that tragedy, the enmity toward Armenians still continues in Turkey. He recalled Hrant Dink—the founder and chief editor of Agos, who was gunned down in 2007 in front of his office building—and Sevag Sahin Balikci—an Istanbul Armenian who was killed, on April 24, 2011, in a military unit while serving in the Turkish army—and stated that their killers and the architects behind their murders are free to this day.

Simultaneous to the remembrance event at Taksim Square, however, around twenty members of the People’s Salvation Party were protesting in another part of the square and stating that the Armenian Genocide is a lie made up by the imperialists.

To note, mourning events and conferences devoted to the Armenian Genocide were held on Wednesday in several Turkish cities.