US President Barack Obama did the anticipated and avoided using the term "genocide" when referring to the events of 1915 in the midst of World War I in eastern Anatolia. Yet, no one is happy about it.

Neither the Armenians nor the Turks thought the statement appropriately reflected how to describe the complicated events of 1915. However, the statement actually attempts to find a middle path between Obama's election promises and the realities on the ground. What is troubling from the Turkish perspective is the persistence in interpreting the events of 1915 solely from one perspective, namely the Armenian one. There is an abundance of evidence about the hundreds of thousands of Muslim losses during the time span in question. However, this is not what this piece intends to accentuate. Instead, I want to look into the possibility of whether the term "Meds Yeghern" could offer a new opening for a common narrative between Turks and Armenians.

Obama's statement is interesting from a variety of perspectives, and I believe it is worth examining whether the term "Meds Yeghern" has the potential to become a mutually acceptable term for both sides to commemorate the events in question. As is now commonly known, "Meds Yeghern" denotes "Great Calamity/Great Disaster" in the Armenian language. Although I am not in a position to fully comprehend the context in which this term is being used in Armenian, I am willing to venture into the following.

I believe the events of World War I constituted a Great Calamity for Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Anatolian Greeks and probably other peoples of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, it was a great trauma for the Turks, who saw their great empire collapse in front of their own eyes and who saw a multitude of peoples rebel against the state and side with the invading enemies of the time. It was a Great Calamity to the Armenians who had to be relocated during harsh war conditions and subsequently suffered immensely. It was a disaster for them as they left behind their homes and memories, similar to the millions of Turks who were chased out of the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East. It was a Great Calamity for the Turks and the Kurds fighting on the eastern front against the invading Russian armies, who were intent on grabbing the eastern part of the remaining territories of the Ottoman realm. It was a true disaster for all involved as the war time conditions of eastern Anatolia were brutal and certainly far from being hospitable to any of the struggling sides. Famine, disease and misery were the order of the day.

Yet, as President Abdullah Gül said in response to Obama's statement, we need to look forward and see whether the Turks and the Armenians will be able to normalize relations in the coming months and years. Therefore, the term "Meds Yeghern" should not be chided right away because it is an Armenian term. I think it harbors the potential to bring all of the aggrieved parties together. "Meds Yeghern" could become the cornerstone of a positive language about the events of 1915, one which signifies the calamity that the competition over the Ottoman realms between the imperial powers brought about, which ultimately led to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the loss of the Armenian population. It also resulted in the loss of the empire's Greek subjects. We Turks built a new nation-state from the ashes of the empire, but one consequence of these historic events was the loss of the richness and diversity of the Ottoman days and the change in the social fabric of these lands. Could it be possible to utilize this term as a base around which all of us could mourn the losses we all incurred during the fateful days of World War I?

All interested in the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations should look into the potential of whether the term "Meds Yeghern" could be applied to the wider pain and disaster that occurred in eastern Anatolia during World War I and thus could pave the way for a common language on this painful chapter of history.