Despite his recent call for peace with Greece, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has an odd way of going about it.
He kicked off his general and presidential election campaign rally on Saturday with controversy, claiming that it was Greek soldiers who were responsible for the Great Fire of Smyrna that destroyed Izmir (formerly Smyrna) in 1922 while leaving after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).
“The biggest blow given to this beautiful city is by the Greek soldiers who burned Izmir as they retreated,” Erdogan said during a speech at Izmir’s Chamber of Commerce.
He attempted to support his argument by claiming that Turkish soldiers “did not want to destroy or burn – they always wanted to build and create”, proven by Izmir’s rapid development after the war.
The fire took place four days after Turkish forces took control of the city on 9 September, 1922, and went on to destroy much of the port city. It is estimated that tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians died in the fire.
Erdogan is not the first to make such a claim; other conservative Turkish sources believe that it was both Greeks and Armenians who started the fire in a bid to damage the reputation of the Turks. However this is contrary to what the majority of historians say, including Niall Ferguson and Richard Clogg who concluded that it was Turkish forces who destroyed the city.