By Taha Akyol
MILLIYET- At a press conference at the Cankaya Presidential Palace in Ankara last week, a reporter from the Chicago Tribune asked visiting US President Barack Obama his stance on the 'Armenian genocide' allegations, inasmuch as he said they were true during his presidential campaign. Obama said that he hasn't changed his views, but added that now the priority is the ongoing Turkish-Armenian negotiations. He even said that these negotiations 'could bear fruit very quickly.' Obama's statements were very important, but were little analyzed. We should see that the claims of the Armenian 'genocide' are spreading. Obama also believes this. It seems there are two ways out for Turkey: One is developing our relations with Armenia, without neglecting Azerbaijan. The second is bringing a new perspective to history. It's not convincing to say that we didn't do this, but that Armenia committed genocide against us. It should be seen and shown that both sides suffered tragedies.
This is the basic reason for Turkey to request that a joint historical commission be set up. Historians won't decide whether it was genocide or not, but the two sides will interpret the documents themselves. But this way the thesis of the two sides will be seen together and the complexity of the issue will be made clear. We have hundreds of books, including copious documents and photographs, which were published to show 'Armenian atrocities' or the 'Armenian genocide against Turkey.' But most of them show bloody actions committed by Armenian militia forces and committees during the Russian invasion which started in 1916. Armenian nationalist militant historians, even Vahakn Dadrian, don't argue about this, but say they were 'vengeance for the genocide which occurred in 1915.' Thus the definition of the 1915 incidents is left to Armenian historians, namely, the people who believe in the 'genocide.'
During his press conference with Obama, President Abdullah Gul took the initiative and addressed TV stations all around the world. This was well-directed. Gul pointed to the service furnished by Armenian committees to the Russian Army in World War I, while the Ottoman Empire was fighting on four fronts, saying that 'some citizens of the empire were then provoked by some other countries,' and thus both sides suffered disasters. Gul added, 'But we have to remember that the Muslim population also suffered greatly at the same time. At that time in the Balkans, in the Caucasus, there were millions of Muslim Turks who were displaced, who were having to come to travel to Turkey, and there were many losses as they traveled.' So Gul characterized the incidents of 1915 as losses which 'took place during the chaotic times of the situation then' and added, 'But when the Turkish republic
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