Protests mark 100th anniversary of Armenian massacres

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Protest marches in Chicago and nationwide mark 100 years since the massacres of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed under the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Turkey denies the deaths were genocide.

In Chicago more than 1,000 people turned out for a similar protest march at Daley Plaza.

Half a world away and a century removed, those massacres are still fresh.

"One hundred years we've been fighting for our cause," says Anna Tcholakian, "for the Turkish government to accept the genocide, and they have been denying ever since."

Tcholakian's grandfather survived the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, now modern day Turkey.

There is no denial that hundreds of thousands were murdered or left to die in those massacres, but who is responsible for them remains bitterly disputed.

Friday, before a sizable crowd at Daley Plaza, political voices said the time has come to be honest with history.

"When we acknowledge once and for all that this was a genocide that sadly claimed the lives of one-and-a-half million Armenians and many other innocent people," said Senator Dick Durbin, speaking at the rally.

While other Western nations have used the word genocide, the U.S. has not. Turkey, a U.S. ally in the world's most troubled region, has warned that a change in language would draw consequences.

"It's mind-boggling to me that a foreign country would make those threats to the United States of America," says Ari Killian of the Armenian National Committee of Illinois.

Those of Armenian and Assyrian descent marched to the Turkish consulate, as they have done in the past on this anniversary date, where they stood behind fences and traded words with those who don't believe them, waving Turkish flags shouting distance away, behind fences of their own.

"Historians need to decide, not politicians," says Erhan Duman. "People screaming at each other back and forth is stupid."

Turks argue that the massacres 100 years ago occurred in the clouds of widespread war and were not sanctioned by their government. Anna Tcholakian will never accept that.

"We're just looking to have recognition that this really happened," she says.

The governments of France, Spain, Germany and the Vatican all accept the term "Armenian genocide." When he was running for office, President Obama said he would use the term, but he has not. Earlier this week, the White House called for a "full, frank and just acknowledgment" of what happened a century ago, but avoided using the word 'genocide.'