Turkey summons Vatican ambassador over pope's genocide comment – official

ANKARA - Turkey has summoned the Vatican's ambassador in Ankara over the pope's comments describing the massacre of Armenians a century ago as "genocide", a senior official told Reuters on Sunday.

 

Turkey, which has yet to make an official statement on Pope Francis' comments, summoned the ambassador to protest over the description of the events as "genocide", the official said, declining to be identified.

 

Muslim 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 hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide. — Reuters