DHAKA: Pope Francis used the word ‘genocide’ on Sunday to describe the mass murder of Armenians in a move likely to severely strain diplomatic ties with Turkey.

‘In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies,’ he said during a solemn mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica to mark the centenary of the Ottoman Turk killings of Armenians.

‘The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th century’, struck your own Armenian people,’ he said, citing a statement signed by John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch in 2000, reports The Straits Times.

The 78-year old head of the Roman Catholic Church had been under pressure to use the term publicly to describe the murders despite the risk of alienating an important ally in the fight against radical Islam.

BDST: 1624 HRS, APR 12, 2015
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