In a striking statement that has reignited debate over the Sayfo Genocide against Armenians, Syriacs (Arameans-Chaldeans-Assyrians), and Greeks in 1915 by the hands of Ottoman Turks and Kurds, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his country has reaped no tangible benefits from the growing international recognition of the tragedy.
On an otherwise quiet day in a small village in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, visitors encircle a small plot almost indistinguishable from the dust-brown earth around it, solemn and still. At the base of a mound of sand, a jagged slab of rock juts out of the ground, featuring the hand-painted date "1933" above the pale blue, four-pointed star of the modern Assyrian flag.
For over a century, the Assyrian people--an ancient indigenous community rooted in the heartlands of Mesopotamia (modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria)--have endured a haunting legacy of violence, displacement, and erasure. Their history is not marked by a single tragedy, but by a series of genocidal campaigns that have spanned through generations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, for the first time, publicly recognised the genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in the early 20th century. Speaking during an interview on Tuesday with American podcaster Patrick Bet-David, Netanyahu was asked why Israel had yet to recognise these atrocities.
Parishioners from six churches in Suwayda, Syria, have been displaced in recent weeks, underscoring the mounting humanitarian crisis in the governorate, according to Greek (Rûm) Catholic Father Tony Boutros, pastor of Saint Philip's Church. The situation reflects the broader fragility and complexity of life in Suwayda, where security and humanitarian conditions are rapidly deteriorating.
When U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack recently suggested that the country may need to explore alternatives to an overly centralized state, his remarks reverberated beyond the halls of Daramsuq (Damascus).