HurriyetDaily -- Human rights activists and artists in Istanbul commemorated the 1915-17 killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks for the first time Saturday, breaking with a near century-old Turkish taboo.

The Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association, or İHD, organized a rally attended by about 100 people on the steps of the Haydarpaşa train station from where the first convoy of 220 deported Armenians left on April 24, 1915.

Under the slogan "Never Again" and the watchful eye of the police, demonstrators carried black and white photos of some of the deportees, most of whom never returned.

Police kept at bay a group of counter-demonstrators including former diplomats waving the Turkish flag.

Forty-two Turkish diplomats were killed by members of the extremist Armenian ASALA organization in the 1970s and 1980s.

Turkish intellectuals and artists signed a petition calling on "those who feel the great pain" to show their sorrow.

Avoiding an open confrontation over the term genocide —which the Turkish government fiercely rejects — the petition speaks of the "Great Catastrophe" of the 1915-17 massacres.

But despite this precaution, organizers were afraid of a backlash from those who could object to the demonstration.

"All precautionary measures have been taken but it's always possible that someone is losing it," Cengiz Aktar, an Istanbul academic who backs the petition, told AFP.

The unprecedented commemoration came as tens of thousands of Armenians marked the 95th anniversary of the killings in the Armenian capital Yerevan amid fresh tensions with Turkey over the collapse of reconciliation efforts.

The dispute about the genocide label has poisoned relations between the two neighbors for decades.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey, was falling apart. Turkey says many were killed on both sides during civil strife.