Have new documents on 1915 been found?

What is the result of the relatively more intense entry of the genocide claims onto the world agenda recently? Have new documents never known before on this subject emerged, and have these supported views in favor of the genocide claim? Or has the so-called Armenian diaspora found new and stronger channels of expression and propaganda and achieved serious success in this direction?

We need to understand that neither the first nor the second possibility holds in the genocide claims' being adopted as a bill, first in the US and then in the Swedish parliament. We cannot be said to be closer to historical information today than before. New information about the events of 1915 has not been found, nor have existing pieces of information entered the world agenda in a more convincing manner. In fact, the historical awareness that parliaments are not competent to assess a historical event can even be considered stronger than before. Moreover, even if Armenian nationalists are perhaps more organized than before, they can even be considered to have lost quite a lot of ground in the face of the steps Turkey has recently tried to take regarding Armenia.

Armenian nationalism, like nationalisms elsewhere, does not want the problems with its adversaries, which are its very reason for existence, to end. The continuation of the problems is what sustains its own legitimacy or psychological ground; their end would finish it off. Relations with Armenia have also had their share of the search for zero problems that Turkey has been pursuing in its foreign policy for eight years, and this was, as expected, met with fierce opposition by Armenian nationalists, but this opposition also pushed them to a degree into isolation. Therefore it is also not possible to establish a causal link between the adoption of the genocide claims in the American and Swedish parliaments and the rise of the Armenian claims.

Indeed, it would be far more fitting to relate this link to the strengthening of Turkey's foreign policy and the widening of its field of influence. The foreign policy that Turkey has pursued for the last eight years has created effects, across all the geopolitical or historical regions it belongs to, that intensify relations, revive exchange, and in this way bring the sharing of peace and prosperity. The approach of mediation or taking the initiative in resolving problems was perhaps at first perceived as presuming for oneself the role of bride and groom at once, or as a fantasy with no return, but over time it has in fact been proven how much influence and prestige it produces.

That this role has emerged with this kind of influence fits sociological models quite well in essence. There is no form of social relationship in which mediators do not receive a share of social influence and prestige. Undoubtedly, being Turkey is an important advantage for playing this role but not a sufficient one. The personal characteristics and approach style of the president, the prime minister and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu are very favorable for such a role to be fitting and to be received with sympathy.

Among Arab peoples recently, the personality of Davutoğlu in particular has become so legendary in terms of his ability to solve problems and mediate that he is the subject of jokes. So much so that even in daily life, when the most intractable problems arise, the expression "if anyone solves it, Davutoğlu will solve it," or, to describe the impossible, "even Davutoğlu cannot solve this," has settled into the Arabic language.

Not only with Arab countries, but throughout the Balkans too, Turkey, especially with Davutoğlu's style based on intense, friendly face-to-face contacts, has accumulated serious diplomatic gains. Even with Serbia, moreover, relations have been established without alienating the Bosniaks, relations that also gain them a great deal. It is known that he met the Serbian leader 11 times in a short period. It is possible to expect that these meetings have gone beyond the solution of problems and woven a new level of relationship.

It can be said that this style and level of relationship was about to shape relations with Armenia too and melt the ice in between. The problems are not few, of course, but they are not insurmountable either. Because of the Karabakh problem, Azerbaijan-Armenia relations constitute one of the most important barriers to the solution of these problems. But the foreign policy style under Davutoğlu's direction in particular would have had no difficulty overcoming this problem.

The adoption of the genocide bill, quite apart from constituting sabotage in front of Turkey's foreign policy focused on the search for zero problems, has also constituted a serious attack on the solution of its problems with Armenia. Bringing the issue to the fore by heating it up in this way was inappropriate in the context of relations between Turkey and Armenia that were going in a good direction, but it is also clear that this inappropriateness can be made sense of only as intentionally sabotaging these relations.

This inappropriateness has been successful in this respect; it has confused Turkey's head and tongue and made it harder to seek solution options from here on. The prime minister's statements about illegal Armenians, the recall of Turkish Ambassadors, the bombastic appeals to the cult of ancestors, and so on, have all been the result of this confusion.

Even if the saboteurs have succeeded, there is never no way to make up for this success. The way is not to rise in anger, and if one has risen, to overcome this anger and to know how to sit down wisely.