Talaat Pasha

Talaat Pasha (also transliterated as Tala'at Pasha or Talat Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: طلعت پاشا), born Mehmed Talaat (Ottoman Turkish: محمد طلعت, Turkish: Mehmed Talât or Mehmet Talat) (1874–1921) was one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress that controlled the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

He was born in Edirne Vilayet. He was of Pomak descent. His career in Ottoman politics began by becoming Deputy for Edirne in 1908, then Minister of the Interior, and finally in 1917 Grand Vizier. He fled the empire with Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha in 1918, and was assassinated in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehlirian, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide.

Mehmed Talaat, when Interior Minister, ordered on April 24, 1915 the arrest of Armenian leaders in Istanbul, and requested the Tehcir Law of May 1915 that initiated the Genocide of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population.

Read more about Talaat Pasha:  Early Life, Young Turk Revolution, Armenian Genocide, Grand Vizier, 1917–1918, Exile, 1919–1921, Posthumous Memoirs, Burial, Current Opinions in Turkey