On early April 25th, a ceremony was held in western Çanakkale province to mark the 106th anniversary of the landing of foreign troops on Turkish soil during World War I.
Due to coronavirus measures, a wreath was laid with limited participants held a church service every April 25th, attended by thousands of Australians and New Zealanders to commemorate their ancestors.
The ceremony began with speeches by Australian Ambassador to Ankara Marc Innes-Brown and New Zealand Ambassador Wendy Hinton at 5:30 a.m. local time started.
Lieut infantry staff. Colonel Anıl Aksoy read a letter from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to families of foreign soldiers killed in the Gallipoli campaign.
The program was concluded after reading the Turkish, Australian and New Zealand national anthems.
At the ceremony the President of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Ismail Kasdemir, the British Ambassador Dominick Chilcott, the Irish Ambassador Mcguinness and the French Consul General in Istanbul Olivier Gauvin took part.
On April 25, 1915, nine months after the World War I, Allied soldiers landed on the banks of the Gelibolu Peninsula. The troops were there as part of a plan to open the Çanakkale Strait on the Turkish Aegean coast to Allied fleets in order to threaten the then Ottoman capital Istanbul.
However, the Allied forces encountered strong and courageous resistance from the Turks, and the campaign turned out to be a costly failure. Tens of thousands of Turkish nationals and soldiers died along with tens of thousands of Europeans as well as 7,000 – 8,000 Australians and almost 3,000 New Zealanders.
The victory against the Allied forces strengthened the morale of the Turkish side, which waged a war of independence between 1919 and 1922 and finally ended in 1923 Ashes of the old empire formed a republic.
April 25 is also known as ANZAC Day in Australia – a major national holiday honoring the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), which was held in 1915 in Çanakkale on the Turkish West coast fought and died. Australia and New Zealand commemorate the event as Gallipoli.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry announced on April 25 that 82 people died in a catastrophic fire in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Baghdad treating severe coronavirus patients came and 110 were injured.
On April 24, Turkish business leaders condemned US President Joe Biden’s statements on the events of 1915.
The Turkish national football team’s friendly matches ahead of this summer’s UEFA EURO 2020 tournament were announced on April 25th.
Ref: https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com
