13:43 12/04/2015 » POLITICS
Pope uses word Genocide to describe mass murder of Armenians

AFP

reports
that Pope Francis used the word Genocide on Sunday to describe the 1915
mass murder of Armenians.

“In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and
unprecedented tragedies,” he said during a solemn mass in Saint Peter’s
Basilica to mark the centenary of the Ottoman killings of Armenians.

“The first, which is widely considered ‘the first Genocide of the 20th
century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, quoting a statement
signed by Pope John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch in 2001.

Many historians describe the killings as the 20th century’s first genocide,
but Turkey hotly denies the accusation.

Related: Pope Francis to visit Armenia next year

From: A. Papazian