YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 4, ARMENPRESS.  Turkish information that Vatican stepped back from the April message of Pope Francis is totally false. “Armenpress” reports spokesperson of MFA Armenia Tigran Balayan made a note about this on his Twitter page.

In the evening of February 3 Turkish MFA took a decision to send back its ambassador to Vatican Mehmet Paçacı, who had been summoned to Ankara after the liturgy delivered in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide at St. Peter's Basilica.

In his sermon during the Divine Liturgy dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide offered in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis called the mass killings and massacres of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915 a Genocide. He said that the slaughter of the Armenians was the first genocide of the 20th century.

Among other things, Pope Francis said the Armenian killings were the first of three "massive and unprecedented" genocides that was followed by the Holocaust and Stalinism. He said others had followed, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.