Daily Sabah, Turkey
April 12 2015

Turkey summons Vatican ambassador over Pope’s comments on Armenian `genocide’

Ankara on pope’s genocide remark: Religious bodies not meant to
instigate hatred

The Foreign Ministry has summoned Vatican’s Ambassador to Turkey
Antonio Lucibello after Pope Francis referred to the 1915 incidents
involving Armenians as genocide.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt ÇavuÃ…?oÄ?lu also slammed the pope’s position:
“The pope’s remarks, which are both historically and juristically far
from the truth, cannot be accepted. Religious bodies are not there to
instigate hatred with unsupported claims,” he said in a message he
posted on his Twitter account.

Pope Francis held a service in the Vatican City commemorating the
Armenians who lost their lives in the 1915 incidents. The spiritual
leader of the world’s estimated 1 billion Catholics held a service
lasting about one-and-a-half hours at St. Peter Basilica on Sunday.

Despite calls for contribution to a reconciliation between Turkey and
Armenia, and also to call historians to examine archives to study the
1915 incidents, Pope Francis opted to take a political stance and
said: “The first genocide of the 20th century struck Armenians.”

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan; Catholicos Karekin II, the current
Catholicos of All Armenians and also the supreme head of the Armenian
Apostolic Church, and Aram I Keshishian, the head of the Catholicosate
of the Great House of Cilicia, also attended the service.

The 1915 events took place during World War I when a portion of the
Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with the
invading Russians and revolted. The Ottoman state forcibly relocated
Armenians to eastern Anatolia following the revolts and there were
some Armenian casualties during the relocation process.

Armenia has demanded an apology and compensation while Turkey has
officially refuted Armenian allegations over the incidents saying that
although Armenians died during the relocations, many Turks also lost
their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian groups in Anatolia.

The Turkish government has repeatedly called on historians to study
Ottoman archives pertaining to the era in order to uncover what
happened between the Ottoman government and its Armenian subjects.

The debate on genocide and the differing opinions between the present
day Turkish government and the Armenian diaspora along with the
current administration in Yerevan still generates political tension
between Turks and Armenians.

Turkey’s official position against allegations of genocide is that it
acknowledges the past experiences were a great tragedy and that both
parties suffered heavy casualties, including hundreds of Muslim Turks.

Turkey agrees that there were certainly Armenian casualties during
World War I, but does not recognize these incidents as genocide.