When Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Yerevan on Dec. 12, in the first high-level visit from Turkey to Armenia in five years, he was greeted not only by his Armenian counterpart, Eduard Nalbandyan, but also by political activists. The latter’s welcome, however, was not a warm one. A group of protesters gathered in front of Davutoglu’s hotel to protest Turkey’s “denial of the Armenian genocide.” They wanted “recognition, condemnation and reparations,” and opposed the Turkish foreign minister for not taking those steps.

Perhaps this was a bit unfair to Davutoglu, though, who said on this trip something that no other Turkish statesman has openly said before: that the “deportation” of Armenians from Anatolia in 1915 was “inhumane.” (In Turkey, “deportation” is the official and the common term for what others call “Armenian genocide.”) No wonder Turkey’s nationalists criticized Davutoglu for taking such an “unpatriotic” step. Writing in Yeni Çağ, a hardcore nationalist daily, columnist Ahmet Atakan argued that Davutoglu acted “as if he is not as the Turkish foreign minister, but a negotiator between the two sides [Turks and Armenians].” More important, the deputy chair of the main opposition CHP (People’s Republican Party), Faruk Logoglu, criticized Davutoglu on Twitter and wrote (with my translation from Turkish):

“FM Davutoglu said to the Armenian FM, ‘The deportation of 1915 was inhumane.’ What was inhumane? What would he rather have been done?”

Logoglu’s reaction is significant because it represents the mainstream view in Turkey about the tragic fate of Ottoman Armenians. Most people here simply believe that it was a defensible act to protect the Turkish homeland.