March 5,
2025
Ethnic Cleansing in Anatolia
Greeks and Armenians had lived in Asia Minor (now Turkey) since the dawn of history, even though the region was part of the Persian Empire, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and later the Roman Empire (in fact, they were referred to as Romans by the invading Arabs). The same was true under the Turkish Empire.
The ethnic cleansing that expelled them from Asia Minor was not driven by religious motives but rather by the rise of nationalism, which was at the root of World War I and also had repercussions in Turkey. With the Greco-Turkish War, won by Kemal, the Greeks were expelled from the lands they had inhabited for three thousand years (most of them resettled in Athens).