The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which loosely (some would say very loosely) oversaw the Big Dig, has deserved few accolades for the last 20 years or more. But once in a while its board gets something right.

On June 20, the board voted to approve an agreement with the Armenian Heritage Foundation to build a memorial on the Rose Kennedy Greenway to the millions of Christian Armenian victims of Turkish governments and Muslim fanatics between 1915 and 1923.

The Greenway is a linear park being created along the route of the now underground Central Artery. The Big Dig has reunited Boston with its historic waterfront and created a new and potentially beautiful urban space. Assuming that the right artist is chosen, a memorial to the Armenians in the park could be a very moving sight.

The idea has been controversial for two reasons.

First was the argument about whether the slaughter of more than a million Armenians was a genocide in the true sense, or (as the current Turkish government argues) a tragic consequence of a brutal war. We think it was both genocide and war. Those planning the Greenway didn’t want what might be regarded as a political statement there. But this memorial, as envisioned, won’t make a political statement.

Second, planners feared that an Armenian memorial would lead to demands for monuments of the same type by other ethnic groups. This thinking was narrow. There is currently no such memorial in Greater Boston to the Armenians, rather surprising given the enormity of their sufferings and the large number of Armenian-Americans in the area.