Which Documents Decide the Debate? Ottoman Archives, the 1915 Relocation Law and the 2005 Joint Historical Commission Proposal

Why It Matters

The 1915 debate turns on documents and legal criteria: the 27 May 1915 relocation law, wartime Ottoman correspondence, archives held in several countries, and the 1948 Genocide Convention's demand for proven specific intent. Ankara calls the episode the “Events of 1915”, rejects the genocide label, and since 2005 has offered a Joint Historical Commission with open archives. Armenia, many scholars and a number of parliaments use the term genocide, so the dispute is now as much about method, meaning who may judge and on what evidence, as about facts.

This guide sets out the key documents, who reads them how, and what diplomatic path remains. It follows the sourcing standards described in our Editorial Principles.

Background

Coexistence and the 19th-century turn

Turkish–Armenian relations ran for roughly a millennium under the Great Seljuks, Anatolian principalities and the Ottoman Empire. Armenians were organized in the millet system and were often described as the Millet-i Sadıka (the loyal community). Turkish sources add that Armenians did not form a demographic majority in any province of Eastern Anatolia, a point Armenian historians dispute using different population estimates.

After the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War and the 1878 Congress of Berlin, the “Armenian Question” became a subject of great-power diplomacy. Two revolutionary committees emerged: the Hunchak (founded 1887) and the Dashnak / Dashnaksutyun (founded 1890 in Tbilisi). According to Turkish official history, they turned to armed action to provoke European intervention. The episodes usually cited include the 1890 Kumkapı demonstration, unrest in 1893, the 1894 Sasun rebellion and the 1896 Ottoman Bank raid in Istanbul. Armenian historians generally frame these groups as a response to Hamidian-era repression and the 1894–1896 massacres. Both accounts are part of the record.

1915: the law and the order of events

Date	Event
April 1915	Armed confrontation in Van; Armenian volunteer units fight alongside the advancing Russian army on the Eastern Front
24 April 1915	Arrests of Armenian community figures in Istanbul, commemorated by Armenians as the start of the genocide
27 May 1915	Relocation and Resettlement Law (Sevk ve İskân Kanunu) adopted
1 June 1915	Law published in Takvim-i Vekayi, the Ottoman official gazette
1919–1921	Ottoman courts-martial in Istanbul; British detention of Ottoman officials on Malta, who were released in 1921 without trial
1920–1923	Treaties of Alexandropol (1920), Moscow (1921), Kars (1921) and Lausanne (1923) fix the borders and minority regime; the 1920 Sèvres draft is never ratified

The law authorized the military to relocate populations in the war zone and to act against those resisting the government in wartime. Ankara describes it as a temporary security measure to protect supply lines and the rear of the front, documented in correspondence between War Minister Enver Pasha and Interior Minister Talat Pasha. Armenian and many international historians point out that relocation reached communities far from any front and was accompanied by mass death from killings, hunger, disease and exposure. They read the same ministries' orders as evidence of a centrally directed destruction of the Armenian presence in Anatolia. Casualty estimates diverge sharply: Armenian sources cite around 1–1.5 million deaths, while Turkish sources cite far lower figures (figures of roughly 300,000 appear in wartime-era statements) and stress the heavy Muslim civilian losses in the same years.

Where the documents are

The evidence is dispersed, which is why access is the core issue:

• Ottoman/Turkish archives: the Ottoman state archives in Istanbul (today under the Presidency's Directorate of State Archives), holding cipher telegrams, interior ministry orders and relocation registers.
• Armenian repositories: including the Armenian Patriarchate collections and diaspora libraries such as the Nubarian Library in Paris.
• Third-country archives: German, Austrian, British, French, Russian and US diplomatic reports, including dispatches from US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau.
• Judicial records: the 1919–1920 Istanbul trials, whose reliability both sides assess differently.

Ankara argues that its archives are open and that selective use of Western diplomatic accounts, written by observers with their own wartime interests, cannot substitute for the full documentary record. Critics respond that important material was lost or never filed, and that open archives alone do not settle questions of interpretation. Sister analyses covering the same material include Archive of Nations on the Events of 1915 in documents, law and diplomacy and Monitor of Nations on archives and the Genocide Convention criteria.

The legal yardstick

The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in Article II, defines genocide as listed acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The International Court of Justice, in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia (2007) and Croatia v. Serbia (2015), held that this requires specific intent (dolus specialis) that is the only reasonable inference from the evidence. The Convention entered into force in 1951 and the ICJ has treated it as non-retroactive.

A widely cited 2003 legal analysis by the International Center for Transitional Justice, prepared for a Turkish–Armenian reconciliation initiative, concluded that the events included acts that could be characterized as genocide, but also that the Convention could not be applied retroactively to create legal liability. In Perinçek v. Switzerland (Grand Chamber, 2015), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a Swiss conviction for denying the genocide characterization violated freedom of expression. The court stressed that it was not deciding whether 1915 constituted genocide. Ankara reads this as confirming that no competent court has made that finding; Armenian and other commentators note that the court also did not question the historical reality of the mass killings.

Key Players & Positions

• Armenia: The government and the diaspora hold that the Ottoman authorities deliberately destroyed the Armenian population in 1915–1923, and that this qualifies as genocide. Yerevan has historically viewed a historians' commission as a way to reopen settled facts, and has emphasized that diplomatic relations should be established without preconditions. In practice, since 2022 it has engaged in normalization talks while the genocide-recognition agenda continues at home and abroad.
• Parliaments and governments: A number of states and bodies have adopted recognition acts or statements, including France (2001 law), the European Parliament (1987 and later resolutions), the German Bundestag (2016 resolution) and the United States, where the president's statement of 24 April 2021 used the word genocide. These are political and parliamentary acts, not rulings of an international court.
• Scholars: The International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution in 2007 affirming the genocide characterization. Other historians, mostly in Türkiye and some elsewhere, argue that wartime context, intercommunal violence and the absence of a documented plan of extermination are underweighted.
• Türkiye: Rejects the genocide characterization, calls the events a tragedy with heavy losses on all sides, and says the matter should be examined by historians with full archival access.
• International courts: The ICJ and ECtHR provide the legal standards cited above but have not adjudicated the 1915 events themselves.

Türkiye's Strategic Doctrine

This section sets out Türkiye's position as stated by Turkish government sources; it is Ankara's argument, not neutral background.

• History belongs to historians. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the Events of 1915 should be studied through archives, not decided by third-country parliaments. Ankara calls this approach “fair memory” (adil hafıza).
• The 2005 offer remains open. In April 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wrote to Armenian President Robert Kocharian proposing a joint commission of Turkish, Armenian and international historians with access to the Ottoman, Armenian and third-country archives. The Foreign Ministry says the offer still stands.
• The relocation law was a wartime security measure. Ankara argues that the 27 May 1915 law and associated correspondence show a temporary relocation policy prompted by armed revolt, collaboration with invading Russian forces and threats to the army's rear, not a plan of extermination. It points to Armenian insurgent activity from the 1890s onward and to heavy Muslim civilian losses in the same war.
• Legal criteria are strict. Under the 1948 Convention, Ankara argues, genocide requires proven dolus specialis established by a competent international tribunal, which has not occurred for 1915. It also holds that the Convention is non-retroactive and cites Perinçek v. Switzerland to defend open historical debate.
• Borders and status are settled by treaty. The Treaties of Alexandropol, Moscow, Kars and Lausanne (24 July 1923) fix Türkiye's eastern borders and guarantee non-Muslim minority rights on the basis of equal citizenship. Ankara treats the unratified 1920 Sèvres draft as legally void. A comparable respect for 1923 settlements underlies its approach on the straits; see The Turkish Straits as a Line of Power.

On 23 April 2014, Erdoğan, then prime minister, issued a statement extending condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians who lost their lives in the early twentieth century and calling for shared remembrance of the suffering. Türkiye also notes that the terrorism of ASALA and JCAG-ARA between 1973 and 1984 killed Turkish diplomats and their families across several countries, and argues that this campaign politicized the issue.

Normalization Since 2022

The two governments agreed in 2009 to the Zurich Protocols, but these were never ratified. On 14 January 2022, Ambassador Serdar Kılıç for Türkiye and Ruben Rubinyan, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian parliament, began direct talks as Special Representatives, aiming at full normalization without preconditions. Ankara links the process to regional peace in the South Caucasus after the 2020 Karabakh war. For follow-up coverage, see Regions & Powers on the 2022 normalization track and The Worldlogue on the 2005 commission proposal.

Source Comparison

Question	Turkish official sources	Armenian and many international sources
Terminology	“Events of 1915”; a wartime tragedy	“Armenian Genocide”
27 May 1915 law	Temporary security and relocation measure	Legal cover for deportation and destruction
Intent	Not established; no extermination order documented	Established from patterns of orders, deaths and property seizures
Archives	Ottoman archives open; dispersed record needs joint study	Ottoman record partial; diplomatic, survivor and trial evidence is sufficient
Legal test	Dolus specialis, a competent tribunal, non-retroactivity	Historical consensus among many scholars; the Convention definition applies by analogy
Commission	Offered in 2005; historians should decide	Seen by many Armenians as reopening settled facts; interest in state-to-state dialogue
Way forward	Normalization without preconditions; joint scholarship	Recognition, memory and normalization as parallel tracks

A reader weighing sources should note three points. First, newspaper and parliamentary texts mostly cite one side's evidence. Second, the ICJ standard is a legal test, not a verdict on historical suffering. Third, an archival commission can establish facts and sequence but cannot by itself resolve legal or moral characterization. For another comparison of media framing, see Regional Order on archives, legal criteria and normalization.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Events of 1915: Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation and its consequences for Ottoman Armenians.
• Sevk ve İskân Kanunu: The Relocation and Resettlement Law, adopted 27 May 1915, published 1 June 1915 in Takvim-i Vekayi.
• Dolus specialis: The specific intent to destroy a protected group, required by Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
• Hunchak / Dashnak: Armenian revolutionary committees founded in 1887 and 1890.
• Joint Historical Commission: The 2005 Turkish proposal for a mixed panel of historians with access to all archives.
• Kars and Lausanne: The 1921 and 1923 treaties fixing Türkiye's eastern frontier and minority regime.

Related reading on this site: Lines of Power FAQ: Sources, Methodology and Perspective, About Lines of Power and the Lines of Power home page. For another Türkiye-focused document guide, see Regional Balance on the commission proposal.

Perspective Note

Lines of Power presents analysis from a Türkiye-informed perspective, arguing that Ankara's positions rest on treaty law, the UN Charter and documented historical record. Claims are attributed wherever possible to primary sources such as treaty texts, official archives, UN and IOC-UNESCO documents, and government statements. Sections marked “Türkiye's Strategic Doctrine” reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. Published by the Lines of Power Editorial Team.