Big News Network
April 12 2015
Turkey recalls Vatican envoy over Pope’s Armenia genocide comments
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey recalled its envoy to the Vatican Sunday after
Pope Francis described as a genocide the mass killing of Armenians
under Ottoman rule in WW1.
Turkey reacted with anger to the comments, which were made by the Pope
at a service in Rome earlier on Sunday.
Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5-million people were killed
by Ottoman forces in 1915, but Turkey is particularly sensitive about
the subject, insisting that the deaths were due to the WW1 fighting
and civil conflict.
Turkey also claims that the 1.5-million figure is too high and the
issue has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey to
this day.
Pope Francis made the comments at a Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite
at Peter’s Basilica, a service that was attended by the Armenian
president and church leaders.
The Pope said that humanity had lived through “three massive and
unprecedented tragedies” in the last century and that the first
genocide of the 20th century was perpetrated against the Armenian
people.
“The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th
Century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, addressing
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.
His choice of words echoed a declaration by Pope John Paul II in 2001,
which distanced the Catholic Church from the Turkish government then
as well.
Pope Francis also decried the crimes “perpetrated by Nazism and
Stalinism” and said other genocides followed in Cambodia, Rwanda,
Burundi and Bosnia, describing the acknowledgement of these crimes as
a moral 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 said.
President Sargsyan welcomed his comments, and said they sent a
powerful message to the international community, but Turkey reacted
with immediate anger.
The foreign ministry said it felt “great disappointment and sadness”
at the Pope’s remarks, adding that they would cause a “problem of
trust” between the Vatican and Ankara.
Turkey also immediately summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to Ankara
for an explanation, and later recalled its ambassador from Rome.
“The Pope’s statement, which is far from the legal and historical
reality, cannot be accepted,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut
Cavusoglu tweeted.
“Religious authorities are not the places to incite resentment and
hatred with baseless allegations,” he added.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2014 offered
condolences for the first time to the grandchildren of all the
Armenians who lost their lives, but insisted they did not die due to a
“political conflict”.
Most non-Turkish historians who have studied the events regard them as
genocide and Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and
Uruguay all formally regard the deaths as a genocide.
From: A. Papazian