On 23 July 1919, a congress of fifty-six delegates from the vilayets of Bitlis, Erzurum, Sivas, Trabzon and Van gathered in Erzurum for the assembly called by Mustafa Kemal and Kâzım Karabekir.
The conference was held in the building which once housed the Sanasarian College, a prestigious school and erstwhile regional center of Armenian culture and education in the years preceding the Armenian Genocide [REF].