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Kurds pay respects to Armenians

Most of the massacres during the Armenian genocide were carried out in today's southeastern Turkey, often by Kurdish militias, but today Kurds commemorate the genocide in Diyarbakir.
Co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish left-wing Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas (C) attends a rally in front of the ruins of Surp Sarkis (Saint Sarkis) Armenian church in Diyarbakir, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire on April 24, 2015. Armenians demand that Turkey regognizes the genocide of 1,5 million of their kin killed between 1915 and 1917 by the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's predecessor. In rejecting the genocide label, Turkey says be

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — With their feet on broken stones among high weeds, a group of Armenians from all over the world stands together in prayer. They are inside the Surp Sarkis Church in the historical center of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey. Although "inside" is relative: Only the walls are standing, the columns and the arches.

Although this place of worship is decaying, the memory of the Armenians is brought to life again, precisely here in the region where so many lost their lives in the massacres of 1915. The Kurdish political movement acknowledges that a genocide took place on these lands and facilitates the revival of Armenian culture in any way they can.

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