Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the anniversary of the Smyrna catastrophe this week by calling it the "lib...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the anniversary of the Smyrna catastrophe this week by calling it the "liberation of Smyrna from enemy occupation" and praising Mustafa Kemal as a national hero. In a statement posted on social media, Erdogan said he congratulates the 104th anniversary of what Greeks know as the Asia Minor Catastrophe, honoring "all our heroes, first and foremost Gazi Mustafa Kemal, who led our National Struggle to a great victory." He extended his greetings to "all citizens of Smyrna." For Greeks, September 9, 1922 marks one of the worst tragedies in modern history. The burning of Smyrna and the massacre that followed killed tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians and forcibly ended a Greek presence in Asia Minor that had lasted thousands of years. Erdogan's framing as a "liberation from enemy occupation" directly inverts the Greek historical understanding of those events. The statement made no mention of the Greek and Armenian civilians who were killed, expelled, or drowned trying to flee the burning city. The comments come as Greece and Turkey continue to manage a deeply contested relationship in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has never recognized the events of 1922 as a massacre or atrocity. The post was shared in both Turkish and Greek on Erdogan's official social media accounts, making the provocation difficult to dismiss as a domestic audience message. #SmyrnaCatastrophe #Erdogan #Greece