The Cypriot government and president Nicos Anastasiades on Monday, April 24 strongly condemned the Armenian Genocide by Turkey on the 102nd anniversary of the event, Cyprus Mail reports.

In a written statement, government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the Genocide was an abominable crime and a shameful chapter in the history of humanity and stressed that “the government expresses its full solidarity and sympathy with the people of Armenia and reiterates its full support for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the international community.”

The date of April 24, 1915 represents the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported several hundred Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. 1.5 million people were murdered between 1915-1923.

Anastasiades, alongside a number of world leaders and government heads visited Tsitsernakaberd - the Genocide memorial in the Armenian capital city of Yerevan - on April 24, 2015 on the centennial of the mass killings.