Armenia

Pope Francis has called the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule in WW1 the 'first genocide of the 20th century."

The pontiff used the word "genocide" in a statement at the beginning of Sunday's Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite at Peter's Basilica.

The service was attended by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

Turkey has summoned the Vatican's ambassador in Ankara over the Pope Francis's comments on the mass deportation of Armenians in 1915 during a solemn mass in Vatican April 12.

Pope Francis referred the killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as "the first genocide of the 20th century," citing a statement signed by John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch in 2001.

This photo from the Vatican's archives is exactly a hundred years old. It shows the Turkish Army hanging Orthodox Christian Armenian women during the genocide.

Turkey claims that these are actions of war, not genocide. Turkish files show  that there were 600,000-800,000 deaths whereas Western accounts point to 1.5 million.

Ankara has embarked on a series of restoration projects on Armenian churches in Turkey, amid criticism that the country's remaining Armenian cultural and historical heritage not destroyed during World War I has been left to ruin.

Greek Cyprus has made it a crime to deny the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenian Turks a century ago, a move likely to rile its old rival Turkey as peace talks on the ethnically-split island remain stalled.

Here is a piece of news first: There would have been a very serious April 24 crisis between Turkey and the Christian world. The crisis was averted at the last minute. 

Here is what happened: Pope Francis was set to visit Yerevan, Armenia, on April 24. After Yerevan, he was to visit Turkey. However, with Turkey?s initiative, his visit to Yerevan on April 24 has been cancelled. 

In the early 1990s, Turkey started to generously buy off-the-shelf arms from foreign manufacturers who had happily discovered an emerging but potentially lucrative market.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has challenged the Armenian diaspora to come up with ?documents? to resolve the intractable political issue surrounding the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians 100 years ago.

Turkish Foreign Ministry on March 14 slammed the human rights report adopted by the European Parliament, saying that the report lacked historical reality and legal basis.

The European Parliament has called on EU member states to recognize the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

The EP adopted the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2013 and the EU policy on the matter on March 12.