Turkey / Armenia: Mehmed Talaat Pasha (1874-1921), Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire

Mehmed Talaat Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: ____ ____ ____; Turkish: Mehmed Tal‰t Pasha; 1874 Ð 15 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha, was one of the triumvirate known as the Three Pashas that de facto ruled the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. His career in Ottoman politics began by becoming Deputy for Edirne in 1908, then Minister of the Interior and Minister of Finance, and finally Grand Vizier (equivalent to Prime Minister) in 1917. He fled the empire with Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha (the other members of the Three Pashas) in 1918, and was assassinated in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehlirian, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Talaat Pasha, as Interior Minister, ordered on 24 April 1915 the arrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople, and requested the Tehcir Law (Temporary Deportation Law) of 30 May 1915 that initiated the Armenian Genocide. He is widely considered the main perpetrator of the ethnic cleansing. (Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)