TURKEY PROTESTS TO POPE FRANCIS AFTER HE BRANDS ARMENIAN KILLINGS ‘GENOCIDE’

The Telegraph, UK
April 12 2015

Pontiff’s run-in with Ankara comes two weeks ahead of 100th anniversary
of start of Armenian killings

By Alice Philipson Rome

Pope Francis has sparked a diplomatic row with Turkey ahead of the
100th anniversary commemorations of the mass killings of Armenians
under Ottoman rule, after describing the events as “genocide”.

The Pontiff’s comments, made in an address to Armenian politicians
and Orthodox church leaders in Rome on Sunday, led to the Turkish
foreign ministry summoning the Vatican’s envoy to Ankara for an
official dressing down.

There had been intense speculation over whether the Pope would use the
controversial term during yesterday’s service, which came two weeks
ahead of what Armenia regards as the anniversary of the killings on
April 24. Doing so risks alienating a potential ally in the Catholic
church’s efforts to stop radical Islamists persecuting Christians in
the Middle East.

However, the Pope made his intentions clear just minutes into the
service on Sunday, labelling the slaughter “the first genocide of
the 20th century”.

His comments will be seen as a clear decision to ignore previous
diplomatic protests from Ankara after he spoke about Armenian genocide
in an unofficial capacity two years ago. On that occasion, a Vatican
spokesman was forced to deny that the pronouncement signified his
official stance.

Armenia and many historians believe that up to 1.5 million people
were systematically killed by Ottoman forces in 1915. The deaths are
regarded by Turks as casualties from a civil war .

At Sunday’s Armenian Catholic rite honouring the centenary – also
attended by Serzh Sargsyan, the Armenian President, Pope Francis said
that humanity had lived through “three massive and unprecedented
tragedies” in the last century, the other two being Nazism and
Stalinism.

“The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the
20th Century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said: “Concealing
or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without
bandaging it.”

He told the audience that it was his duty to honour the innocent men,
women, children, priests and bishops who were “senselessly” murdered
by Ottoman Turks.

More than 20 countries around the world, including Italy, France,
Russia, Germany, Argentina and Cyprus formally recognise the
massacre as genocide. Britain says the evidence is not “sufficiently
unequivocal” to do so.

Turkey’s foreign ministry reportedly told the Vatican’s envoy that
it was “disappointed” by the Pope’s comments, and that they caused a
“problem of trust” between Turkey and the Vatican.

Andrea Gagliarducci, a Vatican expert, told The Telegraph that Pope
Francis had always been close to the Armenian community and that it
was not unusual for the Pontiff to risk “diplomatic implications”
for issues he cares deeply about.

Pope Francis has already linked the deportation of Armenians from
Turkey to the plight of Christian refugees in the Middle East today,
many of whom have been forced to leave their homes by Isil militants
and other militant forces.

“I think with sadness about those regions such as Aleppo [Syria],
which a hundred years ago were a safe harbour for the few survivors,”
Pope Francis said last week during a meeting with 20 bishops of the
Patriarchal Synod of the Armenian Catholic Church. “Recently these
regions have seen the endurance of Christians, and not only Armenians,
put at risk.”