Rondo à la Turk, Medieval Style and "Joke" Included

On Saturday, June 25, 2016, Turkish deputy prime minister Nurettin Canikli called Francis’ comments of the previous day “greatly unfortunate” and said they bore the hallmarks of the “mentality of the Crusades.” When Francis first used the word genocide last year, Turkey withdrew its ambassador for 10 months and accused the Pope of spreading lies.

Canikli said the term “does not comply with the truth”. “Everyone knows that. We all know it, the whole world knows it, and so do the Armenians,” he added. (*)

Pope in Armenia: Father Lombardi Says that the Armenian Word "Medz Yeghern” Is “Stronger” than the Term Genocide

 Translated from Italian by Vartan Matiossian

The Armenian word "Medz Yeghern" is even "stronger" than the term genocide. This is what answers Father Federico Lombardi, director of the press office of the Vatican, to the question about why there is still a certain shyness in the Vatican about using the term genocide to indicate the persecution and elimination that the Armenian people suffered in 1915. "Why -- Lombardi asked -- all this obsession to ask about this?" He added: "We know what happened. Nobody rejects that these were horrible massacres and we recognize that. But we do not want to make a trap of political debates because we go to the substance. It is an enormous tragedy."