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Further Reading

Greece / Hellenic Republic

Greece is the Roman name for this country. The Greeks call themselves Hellenes, and their own country Hellas. Greece is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Economic Community. Greece and the US are defense partners, and the US provides Greece with considerable military assistance.

Greece's allocation of gross domestic product (GDP) for defense is the highest in the European Union (EU). A partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Greece is continuing to modernize the Hellenic Armed Forces and shift its force structure toward smaller, more flexible formations. To achieve this, the government has announced plans to spend more than $3 billion by 2011, in addition to the $8 billion it has spent in recent years on defense equipment.

Greece provides U.S. defense firms with excellent opportunities as it pursues a number of high-priority programs, including new frigates, helicopters, missiles, fighters and "new generation" trainer aircraft. It is estimated that U.S. firms could capture up to $2 billion in business under this modernization program. To take full advantage of these opportunities, U.S. firms must understand the complexities of the Greek market, including its often-unpredictable tendering process, as well as the competition from the EU and other areas. In this regard, a local consultant or partner is essential.

The terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London, increasing attacks on businesses, and the recent attack on the U.S. Embassy in Athens, led to an important change in Greece's - and other countries' - attitudes towards security and counter-terrorism. The necessity for more and better security has resulted in increased market potential associated with the upgrading of Greek airport and port security, to be funded from the Greek national budget, EU funds, the Interregional Plan, and public-private partnerships.

Greece has contributed approximately 150 engineers and headquarters staff to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, though it is currently adjusting its contribution to meet new mission requirements. Greece assumed command of Kabul airport for a six-month rotation starting in April 2010. Greece provided over 67 million euros in development and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan between 2002-2008.

Greece's special political and economic relationships with countries in the Balkans play an important role in reinforcing democratic development there. The country has made positive contributions to Balkans reconciliation through its involvement in the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), NATO's long-running SFOR mission in Bosnia, and SFOR's follow-on mission, the EU's operation "Althea." There are presently 44 staff members in Althea and 366 Greek troops supporting KFOR.

Greece has been an active participant in NATO's Ocean Shield counter-piracy operation providing protection for World Food Program chartered and merchant vessels off the coast of Somalia, and routinely contributes to NATO maritime operations. Greece previously led, and it continues to participate in, the European Union's "Atalanta" counter-piracy missions. The U.S. Navy's naval support base at Souda Bay on the island of Crete provides operational and logistical support to European Command (EUCOM), Central Command (CENTCOM), the Fifth and Sixth fleets, and NATO forces engaged in missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, and the Middle East.

Greece operates the largest merchant marine fleet in the world and is a clear leader in international shipping. Through the 2004-2008 period, more than 7% of Greek GNP was generated from shipping activities. Between the 1890s and the 1990s, the Greek shipping fleet emerged as the world's largest, accounting for some 16 percent of world tonnage by 1994. It was commonly acknowledged that the status and competitiveness which the merchant fleet enjoyed should be maintained, and for a number of reasons. First, since shipping provides direct and indirect employment for thousands of Greeks, and secondly because shipping contributes a steady flow of exchange toward the country's balance of payments. The Greek worldview and strategic tradition have been heavily influenced by the country's relationship to the sea and the existence of the large Greek diaspora. Greek shipping is among the most prominent worldwide and remains an important part of the Greek economy. This maritime outlook continues to shape the way Greeks see the country's national interests, including the relationship with Turkey in the Aegean. In this context, it worth noting an important asymmetry with the Turkish strategic orientation which, despite significant interests in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, is essentially continental rather than maritime. The rapid growth of the Greek merchant fleet presents an impressive accomplishment for acountry as small as Greece. In 1955, for example, Greece had a fleet of only 485 ships. By 1965, it had increased to 1,570, in 1970 to 2,319, in 1975 to 3,216 and in 1980 to 4,000. According to Lloyd's Register of Shipping, in 1982 the Greek flag ranked second in the world table of flags. The fleet under the Liberian flag totalled 74.9 million gross registered tons, compared with 42 million tons flying Greek colors. However, the total tonnage of Greek-owned ships that year reached more than 50 million tons. In December 1981, there were 4,351 Greek-owned ships of more than 100 grt (totalling 50,608,818 grt), as compared with the end of 1980 when there were 4,440 ships totalling 50,265,714 grt, and the end of 1979 when there were 4,568 ships totalhng 50,111,609 grt. Obviously, tonnage increased with a parallel reduc-tion in numbers of ships.Of Greece's 4,351 ships, 3,896 arestill under the Greek flag. Of thoseunder Greek flag, 2,724 ships totalling25,794,691 grt are dry-cargo vessels. Of the remainder, 541 vessels (723,971 grt) were passenger ships and 277 (84,-893 grt) were of various other types. Of this fleet, in 1980, 78% was Greek-registered, 17% Liberian-registered, 3% Panamanian-registered and 2% flying the Cypriot flag. According to statistical data of 2001, the Greek flag fleet consists of 1529 vessels (above 100 gt) amounting to 28.678.240 gt. This fleet represents 38,10% of the European Community fleet and ranks fourth internationally. In parallel, Greek interests control 3,480 vessels of various categories i.e., 9,2% of the world's total number of vessels in service or 17,8% of the world fleet deadweight. As a result, the Greek owned ocean going fleet maintains its position on top in the world league. By the late 1970s there was a lack of enough Greek seamen to makeup all-Greek crews for Greek ships. Although the fleet itself rapidly increased, the increase in Greek seamen did not follow suit. Among other things, Greek crews began demanding improved standards of living, and became more interested in opportunities for employment ashore. Migration from rural to urban areas compounded the problem, as workwas more easily found in the cities. Since the 1950s, Greek shipping companies operated under a very light tax regime, helping the nation to evolve into the world's largest shipowning nation. People in the industry have talked about the "Greek shipping miracle" for over two decades since the end of the Cold War. The Greek merchant marine played a substantial role in the movement of cargo to the Persian Gulf for the U.S. and allied forces. The Greek merchant marine is an important asset for U.S. and NATO interests that is often overlooked in considering the relative strategic and military values of Greece and Turkey. Piraeus is the homeport and heart of the Greek shipping industry, and the waterfront plays host to the world's largest concentration of marine services, ranging from shipowners, operators, brokers, insurers, shipyard representatives and ship equipment suppliers across the spectrum. This is a traditional shipping nation which - most paradoxically - has placed little importance on ports and relevant maritime infrastructure development. The location of Greek ports at the crossroads of three continents, and their potential to become among the most important nodes in the route connecting the Far East with Europe through the Suez Canal, have either not been appropriately appreciated or have been ignored. Automated Mutual-assistance Vessel Rescue system (AMVER), sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard, is a unique, computer-based, voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange assistance for persons in distress at sea. Some 114 Greek shipping companies with 862 ships participated in this system in 2008. Winston Churchill returned to the United States in 1961, for his final visit, on board the yacht of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Onassis was investigated the FBI for Fraud Against the Government. He was charged with violating the citizenship provision of the shipping laws that require all ships displaying the American flag be owned by United States citizens. Onassis pled guilty and paid seven million dollars in fines to the United States Government. In 1968, Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy, the widow of the President John F. Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. The public may have resented her second marriage to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis in 1968, but again she was widowed. After his death in 1975, she embarked on a successful career as an editor in the publishing industry. In later years, Kennedy devoted herself to raising her two children and to a wide variety of social causes. The child of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, Christina grew up in luxury but not without unhappiness. Her parents' divorce and remarriages and the subsequent deaths of her brother, mother, and father devastated the heiress, and impacted Christina's own disastrous romantic life. The distribution of the Greeks in Asia Minor was remarkable. The settlements on the west coast were the result of comparatively recent immigration; while the eastern communities were remnants of the original Byzantine population which had held firmly to their faith through centuries of oppression. Whilst the Seljuk sultans ruled over their empire of Rum, the Christians do not appear to have been treated with exceptional harshness; but soon after the rise of the Ottoman Turks to power a change took place. The abominable boy-tribute was instituted, and, according to traditions handed down in the old Greek families, any one heard speaking Greek in the public streets had his tongue plucked out. It is no wonder that the great mass of the people adopted Islam, and made haste to learn Turkish ; and that those who remained Christians lost their mother tongue. The Greeks who worked in the mines were allowed the special privilege of retaining not only their creed, but their language; whilst those who lived in the subterranean villages of Cappadocia, or in the mountains of Pontus were able, from the peculiarity of their position, to defy the Turk anc preserve their dialect. By the later part of the 19th Century in the islands off the west coast of Asia Minor the Turk was rapidly and surely giving place to the Greek. Whenever land was for sale the purchaser was a Christian, not a Moslem; and if the same rate of displacement continued, there would not, fifty years hence [that is, before 1925], be a Turk on the islands. The increase in material prosperity since the War of Independence was almost as marked in some of the islands as in free Hellas; and each year the area devoted to the cultivation of the olive and vine was extended. It is true that the taxes were collected in a harsh and wasteful manner, and that a Christian was still at a disadvantage in the courts of law; but, on the whole, the conditions of life are not very hard. On the mainland the displacement of the Turkish population by Greeks was, perhaps, more marked than on the islands. Villages and even districts which, less than fifty years earlier, were Moslem were partly or wholly Christian. On the Asiatic shore of the Sea of Marmora most of the villages are Greek; the Greeks were in a large majority on the island of Marmora, and the smaller islands; they were quite one-halt of the population in the Dardanelles district; and they were rapidly increasing in numbers, wealth, and influence. From Edremid, the ancient Adramyttium, to Smyrna, the villages on the coast were nearly all Greek, the rich lands in the valleys of the Caicus, the Hermus, and the Meander were gradually passing into Greek hands; at Pergamu'm, Philadelphia, Manisa, Aidin, etc., the Greeks were increasing, the Turks decreasing; Smyrna had a native Greek population of over thirty thousand, in addition to more than twenty thousand free Hellenes; and the many villages round Smyrna which were at one time almost exclusively Moslem, were almost exclusively Greek. The origin of this colonization of the coast districts must be sought in the increased security to life and property which the Greeks enjoyed since the War of Independence, and the establishment of Greece as a kingdom by the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829. At first little effect was produced, but the condition of the Christians was further improved by the Treaty of Hunkiar Iskalissi of 8 July 1833; the issue of the Haiti Sherif of Giilhaneh ; and the Crimean War. Since the Crimean War and the publication of the Haiti Hamayiln, in 1856, the European ambassadors at Constantinople and the numerous consuls throughout the Levant have constantly brought pressure to bear upon the Porte in favor of the native Christians; and the last Turco-Russian War, which resulted in such an enormous loss of Moslem life and proved so disastrous to Turkey, has greatly improved the status of Christians throughout the Ottoman Empire. Security to life led to a rapid increase in the population of the islands, and men commenced emigrating to the rich fertile plains of the adjoining coast, where they could earn a livelihood with greater ease, and eventually acquire land. The movement, once started, went on at an ever-increasing rate, and it was estimated that more than two hundred thousand Greek islanders had emigrated into the Smyrna districts alone during the forty years from 1847 to 1887. In the late 19th Century the dream of the Asiatic Greeks was a revived Byzantine Empire, which shall extend eastward to the Anti-Taurus, and have its seat of government at Constantinople. They perceived, with the keen political instinct of their people, that the "Grand Turk" once driven from Constantinople and deprived of the prestige which he derives from its possession, could not long retain his hold upon Anatolia. With the western seaboard of Asia Minor in the hands of a rapidly increasing Greek population, and Russia playing the part of benevolent neighbor to the enterprising Greeks of Cappadocia and Pontus, any attempt to create a modern empire of Riim with an Oriental court at Konieh or Brusa would be impossible. In their view the sultan must, in the fulness of time, pass beyond the Cilician Gates, never to return; and the inheritance left void by his departure must fall to the Greeks. These Greek patriots had an intense belief in themselves. They would greet with pitying smiles the sceptic who ventured to cast any doubt upon their eventual succession to this glorious inheritance ; but their fertile brains had not thrown any practical light upon the process by which a Greek emperor was to be enthroned on the shores of the Bosphorus. In the south, north, and east, where men's minds are less influenced by constant intercourse with the free sons of free Hellas, all hope was centred in Russia, the "deliverer" of oppressed Bulgaria. This Greek had definite views and objects, though these may appear for the moment visionary and impracticable. After the Great War the claims of Greece were as a reversionary of the Sick Man's estate. Considering their attitude during the early part of the war (for it is no secret that General Sarrail's operations in Macedonia were seriously hampered by his fear that Greece might attack him in the rear) and the paucity of their losses in battle, by 1920 the Greeks had done reasonably well in the game of territory grabbing. The full extent of the Hellenic claims were (1) the southern portion of Albania, known as North Epirus; (2) for the whole of Bulgarian Thrace, thus completely barring Bulgaria from the iEgean; (3) for the whole of European Turkey, including the Dardanelles and Constantinople; (4) for the province of Trebizond, on the southern shore of the Black Sea, the Greek inhabitants of which attempted to establish the so-called Pontus Republic; (5) the great seaport of Smyrna, with its 400,000 inhabitants, and a considerable portion of the hinterland, which she has already occupied; (6) the Dodecannessus Islands, of which the largest is Rhodes, off the western coast of Asia Minor, which the Italians occupied during the Turco-Italian War and which they have not evacuated; (7) the cession of Cyprus by Eng- land, which has administered it since 1878. In the spring of 1919 the Peace Conference, hypnotized, apparently, by M. Venizelos, who is one of the ablest diplomats of the day, made the mistake of permitting Greek forces, unaccompanied by other troops, to land at Smyrna. Almost immediately there began an indiscriminate slaughter of Turkish officials and civilians, in retaliation, so the Greeks assert, for the massacre of Greeks by Turks in the outlying districts. The obvious answer to this is that, while the Greeks claim that they are a civilized race, they assert that the Turks are not. The outcry against the Greeks on this occasion was so great that an inter-allied commission, including American representatives, was appointed to make a thorough investigation. This commission unanimously found the Greeks guilty of the unprovoked massacre of 800 Turkish men, women and children, who were shot down in cold blood while being marched along the Smyrna waterfront, those who were not killed instantly being thrown by Greek soldiers into the sea. High handed and outrageous conduct by Greek troops in the towns and villages back of Smyrna was also proved. To early Greek writers, Pontus vaguely denoted any coastland of the "Inhospitable Sea" beyond the Bosporus. To Herodotus it meant the southern littoral of the Euxine (Black Sea), which was often called simply Pantos (the Main) by the Greeks, and to Xenophon the south-eastern. It had not a definite geographical meaning till the founding of the kingdom of Pontus by Mithridates in the troubled period which followed the death of Alexander the Great. Under the last king, Mithradates Eupator, commonly called the Great, the realm of Pontus included not only Pontic Cappadocia but also the seaboard from the Bithynian frontier to Colchis, part of inland Paphlagonia, and Lesser Armenia (see under MithraDates). With the destruction of this kingdom by Pompey in 64 B.C., the meaning of the name Pontus underwent a change. Part of the kingdom was now annexed to the Roman Empire, being united with Bithynia in a double province called " Pontus and Bithynia": this part included (possibly from the first, but certainly from about 40 B.C. onwards) only the seaboard between Heracleia (Eregli) and Amisus (Samsun), the ora Pontica. Hereafter the simple name Pontus without qualification was regularly employed to denote the half of this dual province, especially by Romans and people speaking from the Roman point of view; it is so used almost always in the New Testament. This region is regarded by the geographer Strabo (AD 10-20), himself a native of the country, as Pontus in the strict sense of the term. Its native population was of the same stock as that of Cappadocia, of which it had formed a part, an Oriental race often called by the Greeks Leucosyri or White Syrians, as distinguished from the southern Syrians, who were of a darker complexion, but, their precise ethnological relations are uncertain. Geographically it is a table-land, forming the north-east corner of the great plateau of Asia Minor, edged on the north by a lofty mountain rim, along the foot of which runs a fringe of coast-land. The table-land consists of a series of fertile plains, of varying size and elevation separated from each other by upland tracts or mountains, The first cities of Pontus to receive Christianity were doubtless those of the seaboard, from which it must have rapidly spread inland. Pliny the Younger was sent to administer Pontus and Bithynia in AD 111, and his correspondence with Trajan gives a clear idea of the changes already being wrought by the new religion-in his view a "superstitio grava immodica" - not only in the great towns but in remote country places. His reference to renegades who professed to have renounced their Christian faith as much as twentyfive years previously indicates that some parts of the province had been evangelized some time before AD 87 or 88. These inaccessible slopes were inhabited even in Strabo's time by wild, half-barbarous tribes, of whose ethnical relations we are ignorant-the Chalybes (identified by the Greeks with Homer's Chalybes), Tibareni, Mosynoeci and Macrones, on whose manners and condition some light is thrown by Xenophon. But the fringe of coast-land from Trebizond westward is one of the mpst beautiful parts of Asia Minor and is justly extolled by Strabo for its wonderful productiveness. The sea-coast, like the rest of the south shore of the Euxine, was studded with Greek colonies founded from the 6th century onwards. By the 19th Century the term Pontic Greeks included all those Greeks who lived in the hill country bordering the southern shore of the Black Sea. They were generally agriculturists, and in many instances had preserved their language as well as their religion. The sympathies of these Pontic Greeks were entirely Russian, and every year a few families emigrate, not always to their own profit, to Russian soil. Far more ignorant, and far less cultivated in every way than the Cappadocian Greeks, they had often the sturdiness and independence of mountaineers, and had been known to meet in open fight and hold their own against the dreaded Circassians. The mountain Greeks were exceedingly superstitious, and entirely under the influence of their priests, who were little more advanced than themselves. In some of the wilder districts the men presented a rather uncouth appearance, with their long unkempt hair, and eager, excitable manner; but they were, when their fear or caution was overcome, extremely hospitable to strangers; and any one who wished to observe primitive Greek habits, and gather up the old Greek folk-lore before it had passed away, could not do better than spend a couple of months with them in their lovely mountain homes.

Pontus - The Greek Version

Pontus was the last region of the Byzantine Empire to succumb to the Ottomans, after the fall of Constantinople. Despite attempts to forcibly Islamise the region's inhabitants over the course of five centuries, the plethora of churches, monasteries and schools built by the Pontus Greeks between 1471 and 1914 attests to the failure of efforts to expunge the Greek character of the region. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 700,000 Greeks in the Ottoman Empires Pontus region. Until 1922, there were six Metropolitan Churches of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Amasya, Gumushane/Haldea, Niksar/Neokesaria, Makca/Rodopolis, Trabzon/Trapezous and Sebinkarahisar/Kolonia) in the area. After the Ottoman Empires defeat in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), the Young Turks regime (1913-1918), and subsequently the government under Kemal Ataturk (1919-1923), decided to resolve the Ottoman Empires nationalities problem by driving the autochthonous population from their ancestral lands. The beginning of the First World War saw the first violent attacks against Pontus Greeks. In 1916, there were widespread ethnic cleansing operations against them in Samsun and Bafra (Pafra). By 1923, some 353,000 people - half the ethnic Greek population of Pontus - had been wiped out. Moreover, the 1,134 churches and 960 schools of the region were razed to the ground. These operations continued even after 1923, with a view to eradicating the last remaining Pontus Greeks, who were either hidden or trapped in the mountains. Those who survived the genocide emigrated to Greece, Australia, the United States of America and Canada. The genocide of the Black Sea Greeks was recognised by the Hellenic Parliament by Law 2193/94 (Government Gazette 78/A/1994), which establishes 19th May as a Day of Remembrance of the Genocide. On this day, public and private bodies organise commemorative events throughout Greece. The genocide of the Black Sea Greeks has also been recognised in Declarations and Resolutions by the legislative bodies of the American States of New Jersey (2002), New York (2002), Pennsylvania (2004), New York (2005), Florida (2005) and Massachusetts (2006).

Pontus - The Turkish Version

Greece claims that between 1916-1923 the Greek Orthodox population then living in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey became the victim of a systematic policy of extermination by the Turkish authorities of the day and that those who were able to escape did so by taking refuge in Greece. On 24 February 1994, the Greek Parliament adopted "19 May" as a "Day for Commemorating the Turkish genocide against the Pontus Greeks". But history and the facts are at odds with Greek claims and point unmistakably in another direction. The term "Pontus" evolves from "Pont-Euxin", which in ancient Greek denotes the Black Sea. The emergence of Hellenic influence in the Black Sea region can be traced back to the Ionnians who established Greek type city-states in Sinop and Trabzon in the VI. century B.C.. The Macedonian King of Philippe and his son, Alexander the Great, drove the Persians out of the South-East Black Sea Coasts and consolidated their influence in the region. Following the takeover of Istanbul by Catholic/Latin Europeans, the Byzantines living in Istanbul emigrated to the Eastern Black Sea region and founded the Kingdom of Pontus. Despite the fact that it was unable to maintain full and effective control over the region, the Pontus Kingdom managed to survive for some 250 years and later came under the domination of the Ottoman Empire in 1461 following the conquest of Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmet. Though formerly an element of simple folklore, the term "Pontus" was after the events in Cyprus in 1974, loaded with ideological content with the aim of fuelling hostile feelings towards Turkey. It was contemplated by Greek policy-makers that the exploitation of the "Pontus" idea would help in their efforts to undermine the political and cultural principles on which the modern Turkish state stands and would also provide a pretext for forcing out members of the Turkish Minority from Western Thrace. Indeed, in the effort to change the demographical composition of the intensely Turkish populated Western Thrace, the Greek government settled in Western Thrace 120,000 "Pontian Greeks" that emigrated from the territories of the former Soviet Union. In line with the Greek plan of forcing the Turks out of the region, these immigrants, who did not even know Greek language, were injected and saturated with a forced "Pontus consciousness" so that they would acquiesce in their being settled in Western Thrace. In the first part of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was fast collapsing, ethnic Greek irregulars, armed and encouraged by Greece, operated in the Turkish Black Sea coast regions. The Ottoman authorities had considerable difficulty in controlling them. Banditry by these groups often deteriorated into slaughter of Turkish villagers. Over 40 ethnic Greek bandit groups plundered Turkish villagers and murdered at least 2,000 Turks, including elderly, women, and children. After the 1918 Armistice Agreement, Greece and the Greek community in Anatolia tried to take advantage of the weakness of the Ottoman Sultan in maintaining effective control in the region and the Greek irregulars attempted to create an ethnic Greek state on the Black Sea coast modeled on the ancient state of Pontus. Many foreign observers who at the time visited the region comment on the turmoil which these Greek irregulars had created. The American High Commissioner, Mark Bristol, in a report he wrote after a journey along the Black Sea coast, drew attention to the anarchy which the Greeks were fomenting. During his visit to Zile in February 1920, even a Greek lieutenant was bewildered by the menacing actions of Bishop Eftimious against the public authorities. Lieutenant Karaiskos reported that Eftimios threatened to send his 5,000 armed irregulars to the city, if the prefect of Samsun failed to release the imprisoned chief of one of his bands. On July 7 1920, the Athens Pontus Committee, in a memorandum delivered to the Greek government, proposed that 20,000 well-equipped men from Pontus should be sent to inland districts of Anatolia to support the invading Greek forces. The very fact that the armed irregulars of the ethnic Greeks in the Pontus numbered 20,000 reveals the magnitude of the threat they posed to the Turkish civilian population in the region. While public disorder persisted in the eastern Black Sea region, the authorities of the Allied occupation forces in Turkey deliberately misrepresented the precautionary measures taken by the Turkish security forces as "genocide." They did so with the expectation that turmoil in the region would give them a pretext for occupying it under the Armistice Agreement. On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal landed at Samsun mandated by the Ottoman Government to inspect the situation. Contrary to claims being made in Greece, Mustafa Kemal did no more than prepare reports about the situation and dispatch them to the Ottoman Government. Mustafa Kemal's only intervention was in late 1920, when he instructed local Turkish authorities to be more attentive to the needs of the ethnic Greek population. (These instructions are registered in the official minutes of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.) Greek claims that there were "700,000" Greeks in the eastern Turkish Black Sea region and that 350,000 of these were slaughtered is a blatant distortion of history. Even a cursory examination of foreign and local sources about the population of Greeks in the region would immediately establish that Greek suggestion of "700,000" is fictitious. The King Krane Commission, authorised by the American government, reported on 28 August 1919 that the estimated number of Greek residents in the eastern Black Sea region was 200,000. "Documents Diplomatiques" issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, noted that, according to the Ottoman census held between 1893 and 1897, the Greek population was 193,000 in Trabzon and 76,068 in Sivas Provinces. This means that the total Greek population at that time was 269,068. In 1923 at the Lausanne Conference, Elefterios Venizelos, the Prime Minister of Greece, relied on exaggerated numbers given by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul and claimed that the population of Greeks living in the Black Sea region was 447,828. This figure is excessive, but even if one accepts it, it is still far below the current Greek claim of 700,000. Nor is there any evidence in historical documents supporting Greek allegations that there existed 350,000 ethnic Greeks in the Canik Sanjak of Trabzon. Leon Maccas, in a book entitled "L' Héllenisme de L'Asie Mineure" noted that there were 136,087 Greek inhabitants in the area. The 1906 Yearbook of the Province of Trabzon contradicts Maccas by specifying that the province had only 75,062 ethnic Greek inhabitants in Canik Sanjak. The Patriarchate records in Istanbul put the ethnic Greeks of the sanjak at 193,000. Although these figures differ from one another, they are all well below the present day Greek claim of 350,000. Only around 100,000 ethnic Greeks emigrated to Greece from Canik at the time of the population exchange, which again makes it very difficult to assert, as the Greeks do, that 350,000 people were annihilated. In 1923, with the conclusion of the "Agreement on the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Populations" between Turkey and Greece, 322,500 Greek residents of the region emigrated peacefully to Greece. Given the fact that 322,500 Greeks emigrated to Greece and the above estimates about the population of Greeks in the region, the allegation of a genocide involving 350,000 Greeks stands as a malicious lie. History thus points to Greece as the party that should apologise for the war crimes it committed during its invasion of Anatolia, and the atrocities committed by Greek bands in the Black Sea region, instead of being the party that can shamelessly level unfounded allegations about the so-called Pontus genocide. Article 59 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne refers to the war crimes committed by Greece in Anatolia. It will be recalled that crimes committed in wartime against civilians are among the most serious forms of human rights breaches. Today, Greece is continuing to violate the human rights of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace despite her commitments and obligations stemming from international treaties. The world community, as documented in numerous reports by human rights watch groups, is aware of the fact that the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace is subject to policies of systematic exclusion and discrimination. Greece cannot cover up its own past record and its present day policies aimed at suppression of the Turkish Minority.