French President François Hollande has urged Turkey to recognise as genocide the Ottoman empire’s massacre of Armenians during World War I, reports RFI.
"Important words have already been said in Turkey, but others are still expected so that shared grief can become shared destiny," Hollande said at a ceremony in Yerevan Friday which marked 100 years since the mass killings of roughly 1.5 million people.
Turkey has rejected the use of the term "genocide" and argues that only up to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks were killed mostly due to war and starvation.
France is one of around 20 countries to officially recognise the Armenian genocide.
Ankara on Wednesday recalled its ambassador to Vienna in response to Austrian lawmakers' decision to condemn the massacre as genocide, as it did earlier this month with its envoy to the Vatican after Pope Francis described the killings as "the first genocide of the 20th century."