ANKARA: The Turkish foreign ministry called its ambassador to the Holy See back to Ankara, and summoned the Vatican’s ambassador, saying the pope’s remarks had caused a “problem of trust” in diplomatic relations.
Pope Francis sparked a diplomatic row on Sunday by calling the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians 100 years ago “the first genocide of the 20th century”, prompting Turkey to accuse him of inciting hatred.
Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians died in clashes with Ottoman soldiers beginning in 1915, when Armenia was part of the empire ruled from Istanbul, but denies that hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide.
At an Armenian rite Mass in St Peter’s Basilica to mark the 100th anniversary of the killings, Francis became the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to publicly pronounce the word “genocide” to describe them.
Turkey was swift to protest. “The pope’s statements, which are far from historical and judicial facts, cannot be accepted,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on his Twitter account.
“Religious offices are not places to incite hatred and revenge with baseless accusations,” he said.
At the start of the commemorative Mass, the pope described the “senseless slaughter” of 100 years ago as “the first genocide of the 20th century” and noted it was followed by Nazism and Stalinism.
The comments were also published by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan’s office on Sunday.
The pope said genocide continues today against Christians “who, on account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly and ruthlessly put to death — decapitated, crucified, burned alive — or forced to leave their homeland.”
Francis also urged reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, and between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Caucasus mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The appeal came in a letter handed out during a meeting after the Mass to Sarksyan and the three most important Armenian church leaders present.
