It has now been more than a century since the Ottoman Empire slaughtered Armenians against the backdrop of World War I. No one doubts or denies that hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million, Armenians were killed. The question with which historians grapple—especially inside Turkey—is whether those Armenians died amid the terror and confusion of war or whether there was a deliberate policy to target and kill Armenians based solely on their religion and ethnicity. In other words, was the killing of Armenians merely a tragedy or was it genocide?

Those who argue that the genocide label is more political than historically accurate make a number of cases:

• Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle Eastern studies and perhaps the most linguistically talented historian alive, has argued simply that no smoking gun exists to prove intent.
• Military historian Edward Erickson, for example, shown that Kurdish irregulars fleeing or returning from the frontline of the battle between Russian and Ottoman forces conducted most of the slaughter and forcible dislocation.
• Many Turks point out the corollary ethnic cleansing that led to the death of many Muslims and forced whole populations to flee the Balkans during the same period and question the political motivations to ignoring that.
• Historian Guenter Lewy, meanwhile, deconstructed much of the evidence upon which proponents of the Armenian narrative rely and shown some to be forgery and suggested that contemporary Allied propaganda against the Ottoman Empire tainted other material, such as the war crime tribunals.

The field of genocide studies is easily dismissed because those who fancy themselves to be experts seldom have the linguistic ability to conduct primary study. Rather, they rely on the secondary sources handed down to them. That may not be an issue for the Holocaust or later instances of genocide because ample visual and documentary footage exists, but it is a problem in earlier cases where some photographs might exist but when the documents that could prove intent remain locked in archives, if they exist at all.

Indeed, behind the polemics on both sides of the Armenian genocide debate, the inaccessibility of the archives to many scholars for both linguistic and political reasons has been a major problem. Most Ottoman archives ban Armenian (or non-Turkish) scholars and most Armenians archives remain shuttered to Turkish (or non-Armenian) academics.

Now, however, a Turkish scholar claims to have finally found the smoking gun in Ottoman archives showing that the slaughter of Armenians was both deliberate and centrally-planned. From Ilhan Tanir, perhaps the best chronicler of events in Turkey out there and a man who does not filter his reporting through the lens of politics:

Historian Taner Akçam claims he found the missing proof that demonstrates Ittihatists exterminated Armenians systematically.He says that the letterhead on the document leaves no doubt that telegraph is original. We have a telegram drawn by Bahaettin Sakir to Governor Sabit Bey on 4 July 1915 to be conveyed to the Ittihat ve Terakki Elazig (Harput) Inspector Nazim Bey. The aim of the telegram is to coordinate the exile and extermination of the Armenians. The telegraph says: “Are the deported Armenians exterminated? Are the destructive elements destroyed, or expelled only? Let me know precisely, my brother.” In the upper right corner of the telegraph, there is a letterhead of the Ministry of Interior Mulkiye Inspection. At the bottom of the document, there is also a ciphered text consisting of ‘four digits,’ written in Arabic numerals. The word (or suffix) corresponding to each group of digits is written on these quadruple cipher numbers. The letterhead on the document proves without a doubt that the telegraph is original.

Akçam argues that while the contents of the telegram were previously known, its presence in the archives and including relevant codes used at the time show that it is an original and not a forgery.

What does laying to rest the debate about Ottoman direction of the Armenian genocide mean? Recognition is important for Armenians and the descendants of the victims. Some Armenians may call for restitution either in terms of land or money, but they will be hard-pressed to win those concessions given that the genocide occurred more than a century ago and the culpable entity ceased to exist in 1922. Turkey is simply a successor state. The polemics are counterproductive. Historians like Bernard Lewis are not “deniers” but professionals: They rely on documents and do not allow theory or politics to fill in the blanks. If subsequent archival discovery corrects some of Lewis’ work, that’s a testament to the historical process.

To say Armenian genocide delegitimizes Turkey because it was founded some original sin puts it in the company of perhaps 100 percent of the world’s independent nations. Recognition of Armenian genocide, likewise, does not negate the case Turks make with regard to their own ancestors ethnically cleansed in the Balkans. Nor will either side truly be satisfied with the legitimacy of the verdict of history so long as too many archives remain closed or access limited. If both Armenians and Turks want the truth to emerge, perhaps it’s time for both to agree upon an international panel of linguistically capable historians to cull together the archives in each other’s presence.