YEREVAN, JUNE 24, ARMENPRESS. The top stories of international press instantly referred to the formulation “Genocide” used by Pope Francis in Yerevan to define the events of 1915. “Pope Francis again assesses the mass slaughters of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the World War I as genocide. He has made similar announcement last year too, which cause outrage in Turkey”, BBC wrote immediately after Pope’s speech at the Presidential Palace of the Armenian President. “Sadly, that tragedy, that Genocide, was the first of the deplorable series of catastrophes of the past century”, mentioned the Pope.

“Pope Francis invokes magic word “genocide” on day 1 in Armenia”, writes CRUX.

Pope was instantly quoted by Associated press, Reuters, ABCNews, Swissinfo and many other mass media representatives. International agencies find it interesting that the Pope deviated from the in-advance prepared text of the speech that had been provided to media representatives. Particularly,in addition of the formulation “Medz Yeghern”, the Pope used the word “genocide” which had not been included in the prepared text.

Turkey has not responded to Pope’s statement yet.

Pope Francis delivered a speech in a meeting with President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, authorities, and diplomatic corps on June 24 in Yerevan.