Vatican City--Pope Francis will mark the 100th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians with a special ceremony on Sunday, with all eyes on whether he will use the word "genocide".
The 78-year old is walking a diplomatic tightrope, pressured to use the term publicly to describe the Ottoman Turk murders, but wary of alienating a potentially key ally in the fight against radical Islam.
While many historians describe the cull as the 20th century's first genocide, the accusation is hotly denied by Turkey.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
But Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
Francis and Armenian patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni will celebrate a mass in Saint Peter's Basilica, which will include elements of the Armenian Catholic rite and be attended by the country's president Serzh Sargsyan.
The Vatican is holding the mass in time for those in attendance to return home for the official April 24 commemoration.
Using the word would not be a papal first: John Paul II used it in a joint statement signed with the Armenian patriarch in 2000 which said "the Armenian genocide, which began the century, was a prologue to horrors that would follow".
But it would be the first time the killings have been described as such during a mass in Saint Peter's Basilica.
AFP
