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Pope's Use Of Genocide Infuriates Turkey

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  • Pope's Use Of Genocide Infuriates Turkey

    POPE'S USE OF GENOCIDE INFURIATES TURKEY

    Bureaucracy Today, India
    April 13, 2015 Monday

    New Delhi

    New Delhi, April 13 -- Pope Francis uttered the word "genocide"
    on Sunday to describe the mass murder of Armenians 100 years ago,
    sparking anger from Turkey, which summoned the Vatican's ambassador
    for an explanation.

    "In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
    and unprecedented tragedies," the pope 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 slaughter as the 20th century's first
    genocide, but Turkey hotly denies the accusation. Ankara summoned the
    Vatican envoy and an official statement from the foreign ministry was
    expected late on Sunday, television reports said. The pope's comments
    were extensively reported on the country's main news websites.

    "The pope, the first guest in the palace, used the world 'genocide',"
    said the Cumhuriyet daily on its website, referring ironically to
    the fact that the pope was President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's first
    top-ranking visitor to his new presidential palace in Ankara, when
    he visited Turkey in November 2014.

    While Pope Francis did not use his own words to describe the slaughter
    as genocide, it was the first time the term was spoken aloud in
    connection with Armenia by a head of the Roman Catholic Church in
    Saint Peter's Basilica. "It was a very courageous act to repeat
    clearly that it was a genocide," Vatican expert Marco Tosatti said.

    "By quoting John Paul II he strengthened the Church's position,
    making it clear where it stands on the issue," he added.

    The Argentine pope described the "immense and senseless slaughter"
    and spoke of the duty to "honour their memory, for whenever memory
    fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester." The 78-year-old
    head of the Roman Catholic Church had been under pressure to use the
    term "genocide" publicly to describe the slaughter, despite the risk
    of alienating an important ally in the fight against radical Islam.

    Before becoming pope, Jorge Bergoglio used the word several times in
    events marking the mass murders, calling on Turkey to recognise the
    killings as such.

    As pope, Francis is said to have used it once during a private audience
    in 2013 - but even that sparked an outraged reaction from Turkey.

    Armenians say up to 1.5-million of their kin were killed between 1915
    and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and have long sought
    to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.

    But Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000
    Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose
    up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

    More than 20 nations, including France and Russia, recognise the
    killings as genocide.

    Vatican expert John Allen said ahead of the mass that the "truly
    bold" thing for Pope Francis to do was "show restraint" - something
    the pope may feel he has achieved by uttering the word "genocide"
    but only while quoting his Polish predecessor. When Pope Francis
    visited Turkey, Mr Erdogan offered the pontiff a pact under which he
    would defend Christians in the Middle East in exchange for the Church
    tackling Islamophobia in the West, Mr Allen said - describing it as
    "a potential game-changer".

    In 2014, Mr Erdogan, then premier, offered condolences for the mass
    killings for the first time, but the country still blames unrest and
    famine for many of the deaths.

    Pope Francis said the other two genocides of the 20th century were
    "perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism", before pointing to more recent
    mass killings in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.

    "It seems humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding
    of innocent blood," he said. The Armenian victims a century ago were
    Christian, although the killings were not openly driven by religious
    motives.

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