A $12 billion history lesson

Last week, a senior French functionary flew to Stambul to discuss Turkey's exclusion of Gaz de French Republic from an $12 one million million pipeline undertaking - designed to bring telephone exchange Asian oil straight to European markets - because of recent French statute law making it a felon offense to deny that the decease of 100 of one thousand of Armenians in 1915 constituted genocide.

The Turkish government clearly takes history seriously. Just last Oct, when the United States United States Congress considered a bill similar to the French genocide statute law - without the punitive dimension - Meleagris gallopavo threatened to restrict airspace vital to the American military attempt in Iraq. Washington D.C. Backed off.

Meleagris gallopavo objects to the term "race murder" to describe the historical tragedy it calls the "events of 1915." Turkish capital is resolute in defending this stance and has mirror legislation to that of French Republic making it a felon offense to use the term "race murder." Turkey does not deny that 100 of one thousand of men, women and kid perished in a series of population transfers across a rugged mountain part, but it blames the decease on the tragic combination of bureaucratic ineptness and peculiarly harsh climatic conditions.

For Armenians, as well as about two dozen other state ranging from Commonwealth of Australia to Republic of Venezuela, this was "race murder" plain and simple. This clash of historical narratives has become more than academician, as French Republic and the United States have late learned.

Saint George Orwell warned us about mix history and political relation, but after about a century, it is possibly time for governments and scholarly person to cooperate in resolution this difference by establishing an international historical committee to explore these issues in a sustained, comprehensive and, most important, cooperative substance, as the Czechs and Germans did with their joint historical commission in the 1990s when similar tensions strained their relations.

Unlike the Nazi persecution of the Jews, which was determined to have constituted genocide by an international tribunal in Nuremburg, and subsequent tribunals that made similar determinations for Rwanda and for Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia, the Armenian genocide, or "events of 1915," has never been subjected to similar international historical or legal scrutiny. There have been judgments rendered on the tragedy, including expert opinions by the International Center for Transitional Justice and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. But there has never been a formal independent historical commission that has had access to the complete historical record or involved teams of scholars from Turkey and Armenia, like the Czech-German historical commission established to resolve historical disputes between those two countries or numerous similar commissions.

There have been several attempts in recent years by Turks and Armenians to address the issue collectively. In 2001, a Turkish-Armenian reconciliation commission was launched to great fanfare only to collapse a year later. In 2005, the late Hrant Dink joined 30 Turkish and Armenian scholars and journalists at the Salzburg Global Seminar to explore ways of advancing Turkish-Armenian dialogue. Last April, a group of Nobel laureates led by Elie Wiesel published an appeal for "understanding and reconciliation" that was publicly greeted by Turkish scholars in an open letter.

In a gesture toward dialogue, the Turkish government published full-page advertisements in major newspapers, including this one, calling for a joint Turkish-Armenian historical commission. And just this month, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reiterated this position at an international security conference in Munich.

Perhaps the time has come to take Turkey up on its offer and establish an independent, international historical commission that can explore the historical facts and legal definitions in a neutral and sustained manner and render an independent and informed opinion.

Such a commission would need to have the historical authority and legal expertise to review the historical facts and deliberate on the legal implications. It would need the cooperation of Turkey and Armenia as well as Russia, France, Britain, the United States and other countries to provide access to pertinent archives. And it would benefit from access to private archives that contain relevant documents.

History is best when it is researched and debated before it is lobbied and legislated. It will be a costly undertaking, both in terms of time and resources - there is no question about that - but as France and the United States know, unresolved historic legacies often come with an even higher price tag.

Elazar Barkan and Timothy W. Ryback co-direct the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation.