Monument to Armenian Genocide victims in Istanbul to be restored

“Say No to Racism and Nationalism” NGO in Turkey plans to erect a new monument in place of the old one that was built in the Gezi Park of Taksim Square in downtown Istanbul in 1919 and was later dismantled, Ermenihaber.am reported.

NGO spokesman Cengiz Algan said the monument was in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, adding that the past should not be buried in oblivion.

According to Algan, the area of present-day Gezi Park and the adjacent area where a military unit is now located belonged to Armenians once. The land was given to the Armenian community by the sultan Suleiman Kanuni in acknowledgement of the act of his cook of Armenian descent who saved his life. An Armenian cemetery was there.

“The Kemalists seized the land from the Armenians in the 1940s. The stairs of the Gazi Park were built from Armenian gravestones. The Armenians were killed. Yet tens of thousands have survived and they are trying to prove the tragedy of their ancestors on these lands. We intend to remind people about the Genocide, not to conceal the truth. We want to inform visitors of the Gezi Park that a monument to the Armenian Genocide victims stood here in 1919. And we hope that one day a new monument to the Genocide victims will be built in this place,” Algan stated.