“Prevention of genocide is a political issue and as long as we have the nation states, and the nation states continue to have their sovereign rights, we will have genocides and mass crimes in the world. We have to set up a system like the police within a nation, which can intervene any time when a crime occurs,” he said.

According to the historian, the Turkish policy is well known. “It’s a policy of 95 years of denial. If it continues to deny the historic truth, it cannot create a good democracy. Facing history is a very honorable thing and I’m hopeful the Turkish government will change the policy soon,” he said.

“I do hope that Turkey will face this dark chapter of the history. Turkey is not the Turkey that we know for 10 years. If it wants to be a member of the European Union, of the civilized world, it has to acknowledge these wrongdoings of the past,” Taner Akçam said.

He called on the international community to recognize the Armenian Genocide so that is not allowed to continue denying the historic wrongdoings.