Yet Turkish attitudes may only change slowly. Some Turkish bureaucrats privately fear that admission of any sort of guilt would open the country up to the three Rs recognition, reparations, and perhaps even the restitution of territory. Emotions, too, play a part. Senior foreign ministry officials remember all too vividly the terrorist attacks mounted by radical Armenian groups during the 1970s and 1980s. Among the 71 killed were 34 diplomats.
Some Turkish politicians accuse critics of double standards.
For the most part, Turks believe that the Armenian lobby is wilfully misrepresenting history. The version taught in Turkish schools is that Armenians allowed themselves to be caught up in Great Power politics in an attempt to create their own state during World War I. Pro-Turkish historians dispute that 1.5 million Armenians died, but even they admit that between 300,00 and 600,000 perished. However Turks also died as the result of Armenian atrocities committed behind the lines of the advancing Russian army. This does not explain, according to Dink, why Armenians died in provinces far away from the Eastern front. He describes Armenians as still suffering from their fixation with their own tragedy and Turks by their need to deny it.