VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has held a service in Vatican City for Armenians who lost their lives in the 1915 incidents.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan; Catholicos Karekin II, the current Catholicos of All Armenians and the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and Aram I Keshishian, the head of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, also attended the rite.
Quoting a declaration signed by Pope John Paul II and Kerekin II in 2001, the Pope said at the St. Peter Basilica: "In the past century, our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies."
"The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the twentieth century, struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks and, more recently, there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia."
Pope Francis added: "We have not yet learned that war is madness ... senseless slaughter."
'Rest in peace'
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences for the first time in 2014 to all Ottoman citizens who lost their lives in the events of 1915.
"Armenians who lost their lives in the events in the early twentieth century rest in peace, and we convey our condolences to their grandchildren," Erdogan said.
The 1915 events took place during World War I when a portion of the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with the invading Russians and revolted.
The Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following the revolts and there were some Armenian casualties during the relocation process.
'Great tragedy'
Armenia has demanded an apology and compensation, while Turkey has officially refuted Armenian allegations over the incidents saying that, although Armenians died during the relocations, many Turks also lost their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian gangs in Anatolia.
The Turkish government has repeatedly called on historians to study Ottoman archives pertaining to the era in order to uncover what actually happened between the Ottoman government and its Armenian citizens.
The debate on “genocide” and the differing opinions between the present day Turkish government and the Armenian diaspora, along with the current administration in Yerevan, still generates political tension between Turks and Armenians.
Turkey's official position against allegations of “genocide” is that it acknowledges the past experiences were a great tragedy and that both parties suffered heavy casualties, including hundreds of Muslim Turks.
Turkey agrees that there were certainly Armenian casualties during World War I, but that it is impossible to define these incidents as “genocide”.
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