Turkey anger at Pope Francis Armenian ‘genocide’ claim

Turkey has reacted with anger to the comment made by the Pope at a service in Rome earlier on Sunday.
Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were killed by Ottoman forces in 1915.
But Turkey has always disputed that figure and said the deaths were part of a civil conflict triggered by WW1.
The row has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey.
‘Bleeding wound’
The Pope made the comments at a Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite at Peter’s Basilica, attended by the Armenian president and church leaders.
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.

 

Read More: Turkey anger at Pope Francis Armenian ‘genocide’ claim – BBC News