Vatican and Turkey locked in Armenian genocide row

[WorldNews]

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Pope Francis on Sunday released peace doves on the Armenia-Turkey border in a gesture of reconciliation as Ankara slammed the pontiff for denouncing the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as "genocide". Standing on a terrace of the Khor Virap monastery, Francis and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church Karekin II released the two white birds in the direction of Mount Ararat -- the Biblical final resting place of Noah's Ark -- now in modern-day Turkey. The long-planned gesture at the end of a three-day visit to ex-Soviet Armenia came in the face of fresh Turkish ire after Francis used the word "genocide" to refer to the century-old slaughter that Ankara furiously rejects.

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