OSCE adopts Turkish thesis regarding 1915 events

Turkey's thesis against Armenian allegations about the events of 1915 has been adopted for the first time by the general assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's annual session was held in Kazakhstan's capital Astana with the main theme of 'Transparency in the OSCE'. During the session, a motion submitted by the Turkish delegation was adopted. The motion underlines that past events like genocide should be recognized only after historians carried out a detailed research in all kinds of archives," Alaattin Buyukkaya, head of the Turkish delegation at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, told a statement on Wednesday.

In 2005, Turkey officially proposed to the Armenian government the establishment of a joint historical commission composed of historians and other experts from both sides to study together the events of 1915 and to open the archives of Turkey and Armenia, as well as the archives of all relevant third-party countries and share their findings publicly. Unfortunately, Armenia has not yet responded positively to this initiative and Turkey's proposal remains on the table.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic links since Ankara intensified its protests against Armenian invasion and violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia invaded in a war with Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. The border between Turkey and Armenia has been closed.

Armenia, with the backing of the Diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. Turkey rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.

"The OSCE is the biggest international organization behind the United Nations. Adoption of the Turkish thesis by the OSCE is a significant achievement against the Armenian allegations. Also, the Turkish thesis regarding the events of 1915 was adopted for the first time on an international platform. The OSCE has 56 member states. Only Armenia voted against the motion. A majority of the other member states voted in favor of it," he said.

"The motion says that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly encourages the formation of joint history commissions by historians and experts from the third countries in case of a research into political and military archives to scientifically and unbiasedly enlighten a disputed period in history in an effort to serve transparency and common understanding among the member states," Buyukkaya added.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE is the parliamentary dimension of the organization, whose 56 participating States span the geographical area from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The primary task of the 320 member Assembly is to facilitate inter-parliamentary dialogue, an important aspect of the overall effort to meet the challenges of democracy throughout the OSCE area.