Turkey remembers 1821 Tripolice massacre in Greece

By Gozde Bayar

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Thursday remembered the 1821 Tripolice massacre where thousands of Turks were killed in central Peloponnese in Greece.

Marking the 200th anniversary, the Foreign Ministry said tens of thousands of Turks were “brutally murdered” in Tripolice when the administrative center of the Peloponnese was besieged by Greek rebels in 1821.

“This inhumane massacre, which aimed not to let a single Turk survive in the Peloponnese, has been written as a black mark in history,” it said on Twitter.

Those who make the mistake of educating others by distorting the facts at every opportunity should know that their atrocities can never be forgotten, and they should face the facts sincerely, the ministry added.

Tripolice was the administrative center of the Peloponnese province in the southern region of Greece and was ruled by the Ottoman Empire since the end of the 14th century.

In three days following the city's capture, Muslims, alongside Jewish and Christian supporters of the Ottoman regime, inhabitants of Tripolice, were exterminated.

There are testimonies by many European soldiers, historians and Greek leaders about the massacre of the Turks in the city by not complying with an agreement representatives of the Muslims in Tripolice made to freely leave the city to Greek revolutionaries, But when Greek insurgents entered, they began the killing.

It is estimated that as many as 25,000 Turkish-Muslims were killed.