Turkey Summons Vatican Ambassador Over Pope's Genocide Comment: Official

armenian genocide — Turkey has summoned the Vatican's ambassador in Ankara over the pope's comments describing the massacre of Armenians a century ago as "genocide." Armenian protesters demonstrate near the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Jan. 28, 2015. The European Court of Human Rights holds a hearing on Wednesday on the case of Dogu Perincek, Chairman of the Turkish Workers Party, against Switzerland. Perincek was found guilty of racial discrimination by a Swiss Police Court for having publicly denied the characterization of genocide, without calling into question the existence of massacres and deportations of Armenians in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire, during various conferences in Switzerland in 2005. Perincek claims that the Swiss courts breached his freedom of expression. Reuters

(Reuters) - 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 Istabul, but denies hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide.

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