The issue burst into an international row - and possibly worse - as the U.S. Congress is demanding that Turkey officially recognize the genocide as fact. Turkey's newly elected Islamist president and his party member prime minister are threatening “serious consequences,” including cancelling arms deals and closing the Incirlik air base, which is a vital transport hub to US military manuevers in Iraq. Turkey’s large international debt also looms in the background and it could complicate matters for both sides. And this hard talk is on top of Turkey's imminent invasion of Kurdish Iraq to sort out PKK terrorists or “rescue” Kirkuk and its Turkomen minority and check on recent oil deals in Kurdish Iraq—and to pacify the army’s enigma about an Islamist president in Çankaya Palace.

Very reluctantly and in small steps, Ankara has moved toward admitting that Armenians, once one of the two favored Christian minorities under the Ottoman Empire, perished of starvation and thirst as the Russians advanced. Nevertheless, and always off the record, Turkish nationalists say that the Ottomans had proof that Armenian nationalists were pro-Russian militia and guerrilla groups and thus they “deserved” it. As always, a bargain can be struck in the Turkish political bazaar—namely, EU membership in exchange for a political whitewash.

This remains a baffling situation because the acts in question were carried out by a different government than the “new, modern” Turkish Republic. However, the vast Ottoman archives remain under strict seal since 1923 and requests for access to such records, even by Turkish researchers and historians, are summarily rejected. One reason is that those records are in the old Arabic script of the Turkish language, before Kemal Ataturk changed the national alphabet. So there hardly any Turkish nationals who can read these materials, nor any government specialists that can edit them. As such, hearsay, nationalist spin and oversized newspaper headlines conveniently generate denials and dismissal of facts. Eyewitnesses and historians, including Gertrude Bell (the English Arabist who helped set up modern Iraq) reported in their diaries of Armenian prisoners and refugees being butchered.

We ought to recall that Turkey, with its army of half a million soldiers, was merely an American ally of convenience during the Cold War. In this new era of confused world order, American policy is influenced by many powerful lobbies, and the Armenian lobby is one of the most successful exile groups in the world. It has a powerful presence in California, Europe, Lebanon, Jerusalem and now its own pro-Moscow state of Armenia in the Caucasus. The Armenian lobby also managed a similar resolution by the French parliament, and that has proved to be a convenient tool for the assertive anti-Turkish views of President Sarkozy.

As I wrote about Turkey's trouble with its minorities, murder and denial are not the most realistic way forward. A democratic society must solve problems with courage and realistic engagement.

Turkey must engage this American resolution, and the rest of the world, as a welcomed opportunity for a wholesale review of all regional events during the 20th century. That includes all issues that have roots during the ill-crafted breakup of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent fabrication of new, and now failed or deadlocked, states (Iraq, Syria and Israel come to mind).

This might be an opportunity for the religious democrats of the Turkish Republic to adopt a transparent policy and distance themselves from the Ottoman religious radicals. The contrast of the Federal Republic of Germany against the Third Reich might serve as a useful example. As such, Turkey ought to submit to cold facts and, when necessary, prove to the world that it is a sober republic and a stable Muslim democratic society-- one that is able to face reality as an adult. Otherwise, Turkey will continue as the longest emerging market and the perpetual EU aspirant, in the waiting lounge of two large Christian clubs of NATO and EU for an invitation.