Turkey: Pope Francis statement on WWI genocide stamp of ‘Crusades’ mentality

Turkey has condemned as “very unfortunate” Pope Francis’s declaration that the mass killings of Armenians a century ago by Ottoman forces amounted to a genocide, saying it bore traces of “the mentality of the Crusades.” The Pope on Friday denounced the World War I killing of Armenians as a genocide, prompting Turkey’s anger. On Saturday, he visited the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan but sought to strike a conciliatory tone during evening prayers. When Francis last used the term in the Vatican in 2015, on the centenary of the killings, Ankara angrily recalled its envoy from the Holy See for nearly a year.

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