Pope Francis calls Armenian WW1 killings 'genocide'
Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5 million people were systematically killed by Ottoman forces in 1915. But the Pope's statement is expected to anger Turkey, which has consistently denied that the killings were genocide. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan attended the service, to honour a 10th century Armenian mystic. The dispute has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey, BBC News reports. 'Bleeding wound' The Pope first used the word genocide for the killings two years ago, prompting a fierce protest from Turkey. At Sunday's Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite at Peter's Basilica, he said that humanity had lived through "three massive and unprecedented tragedies" in the last century. "The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the 20th Century', struck your own Armenian people," he said, in a form of words used by a declaration by Pope John Paul II in 2001. Pope Francis also referred to the crimes "perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism" and said other genocides had followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. He said it was his duty to honour the memories of those who were killed. "Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it," the Pope added. On Sunday, Pope Francis also honoured the 10th Century mystic St Gregory of Narek by declaring him a doctor of the church. Only 35 people have been given the title, reports AP. Armenia marks the date of 24 April 1915 as the start of the mass killings. The country has long campaigned for greater recognition of what it regards as a genocide. 'Political conflict' In 2014, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences to the grandchildren of all the Armenians who lost their lives for the first time. But he also said that it was inadmissible for Armenia to turn the issue "into a matter of political conflict". Armenia says up to 1.5 million people died in 1915-16 as the Ottoman empire split. Turkey has said the number of deaths was much smaller. Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as genocide. Among the other states which formally recognise them as genocide are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay. Turkey maintains that many of the dead were killed in clashes during World War I, and that ethnic Turks also suffered in the conflict.
