YEREVAN, JUNE 27, ARMENPRESS. I didn’t know another word except from genocide about the Armenian extermination, Pope Francis said after returning from Armenia to Rome during an interview with journalists.

“In Argentina, when you spoke of the Armenian extermination, they always used the word “genocide.” I didn’t know another. At the cathedral in Buenos Aires, we put a stone cross in the third altar on the left, remembering the Armenian genocide. I didn’t know another word. I come from this word. When I arrived in Rome, I heard another word: “The Great Evil” or the “terrible tragedy,” but in Armenian, I don’t know how to say it… and they tell me that no, that that is offensive, that of “genocide,” and that you must say this. I’ve always spoken of three genocides in the last century… always three! The first was the Armenian, then that of Hitler, and the last is that of Stalin”, “Armenpress” reports, Pope Francis said.

On June 26 Pope Francis’ three-day visit to Armenia came to its end. Traditionally, during his flight to Rome, he gave an interview to journalists. He was asked a question on the use of the word ‘genocide’ on June 24 in the Presidential Palace of Armenia.

He said another genocide took place in Africa, but as in the orbit of the two great wars there are these three.

“Last year, when I was preparing the speech, I saw that St John Paul II had used the word. And I cited that… and it wasn’t received well. A statement was made by the Turkish government. Turkey, in a few days called its ambassador to Ankara,  who returned three months later”, Pope Francis said.

“In this speech at the start there wasn’t that word. I respond because I added it. But after having heard the tone of the speech of the Armenian President and also with my past with this word, and having said this word last year in St. Peter’s publicly, it would have sounded strange not to say at least the same thing”, he stated.