COMMISSION OF HISTORIANS WELCOMED BY ACADEMIC

Hurriyet
April 22 2009
Turkey

ISTANBUL – While most Turkish and many non-Turkish historians
continue to object to the term "genocide" as an accurate description
of Armenia’s tragic years around 1915, recently there has been a
convergence of views. The earliest Turkish historian to move beyond
the black and white debate was Halil Berktay of Istanbul’s Sabanci
University. Berktay has suggested "proto-genocide" might be a better
term, given that the legal definition of genocide was written made
33 years after 1915.

One of the few Turkish figures to embrace the emotional word "genocide"
without reservation is Taner Akcam, a scholar at Clark University in
the U.S. His use of that word netted him an indictment for "insulting
Turkishness" at one point, a charge of which Turkish courts acquitted
him.

In the wake of U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent Turkish visit,
his past use of the symbolic term and comments in Turkey that his
views have not changed in the run-up to April 24 are evidence enough
for Akcam, who believes Obama is likely to use the term in his expected
address Thursday.

Turkey’s proposal "I’d say there is a high possibility of such
recognition, it’s not possible to say he absolutely will do so,"
Akcam told the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review. More important
for Turkey and Armenia, he said, is a full and candid exploration and
discussion of the two societies’ mutual history and he said he welcomes
Turkey’s proposal for a commission of historians as a positive step.

But it should not be tasked to "come to a decision about history,"
but rather to work to complete the still incomplete archival record,
he said. Akcam pointed out that many documents would still need to
be presented to the historians committee once it is founded.

There are other archives, including references in Boston and at the
Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem as well that have not yet been
made fully available to scholars, he said.

More archival work will not change anyone’s broad conclusions, he said,
but will facilitate better understanding.