Hopes that Turkey could ever solve its almost intractable Kurdish issue have never been as high as they were in the first quarter of 2013. If this peace process can continue with all its ups and downs but without rupture, it could that suggest that another perennial issue as old as the Kurdish issue, the Armenian question, can also be tackled.

Of course, there is a fundamental difference. The Kurdish issue directly concerns 15 million people living in Turkey as Turkish citizens and more than 30 million other Kurds living in the region and majority populations of tens of millions living in those countries. The Armenian question is about the perishing of a national community on the land they have been living for time immemorial. Today, the question is more about its deep psychological scars rather than its physical aspects.

For the Armenians, a large part of historical Armenia, what  they call Western Armenia, covers an substantial portion of today’s eastern Turkey. It is not unusual for countries and lands to change names but for the Armenians and Turkey, the issue is more than losing land but the almost total annihilation of a nation on the land where they used to live.

We are talking about the events of 1915, which the Armenians first labeled “”Metz Yeghern," that is, “Great Disaster,” until the UN adopted the 1948 Convention on Genocide. Turkish historiography called it “tehcir," that is, “relocation or deportation."