By Suphi Aksoy | Member of the Presidential Committee of the Bethnahrin National Council The 1915 genocide, known as Sayfo in Syriac, was carried out against the Syriac, Armenian and Greek-Pontian Christian peoples over a vast geographical area. Massacres and deportations intensified1915. They stretched from Istanbul to Hakkari. In that year the atrocities peaked. The genocidal attacks began in early June, when Ottoman military units and irregular armed gangs crossed the Tigris River in northern Tur Abdin and laid siege to settlements around Hasankeyf, burning and destroying everything in their path.

By Suphi Aksoy | Member of the Presidential Committee of the Bethnahrin National Council The village of Qeleth in Tur Abdin contains many sacred sites... monasteries, shrines, churches, and other places of worship. The Tur Abdin region is one of the major centers of worship of saints. From the earliest Christian times, preachers and disciples of the Apostles came to this region to spread their faith.

QELETH, Turkey — The Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) diaspora is steadily renewing its ties with the ancestral heartland of Beth Nahrin (Mesopotamia), a connection that has grown stronger in recent...