U.S. Urges 'Full' Admission of Facts in Mass Killing of Armenians

The United States Tuesday called for a "full, frank" acknowledgement of the facts surrounding the mass killing of Armenians in World War I, but shied away from calling it "a genocide."

Turkey has drawn a defiant red line in refusing to recognize the mass killings of Armenians in World War I as "genocide" on the 100th anniversary year of the tragedy.

And Ankara has hit out at Pope Francis for his use of the word in a weekend address, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying "I condemn this mistake."

"The president and other senior administration officials have repeatedly acknowledged as historical fact, and mourned the fact, that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire," State Department acting spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

They had also stated "that a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests, including Turkey's, Armenia's and America's."

Harf added that "nations are stronger and they progress by acknowledging and reckoning with pretty painful elements of their past."

Such moves were "essential to building a different, more tolerant future," she said.

However, she refused to term the mass killings a genocide, even though during his 2008 campaign for the White House, then senator Barack Obama had pledged to "recognize the Armenian genocide."

Turkey is a key U.S. ally and a fellow member of NATO.

Harf refused to be drawn on what candidate Obama had said, adding reporters should check with the White House as she spoke for the State Department.

Armenia and Armenians in the diaspora say 1.5 million of their forefathers were killed by Ottoman forces in a targeted campaign ordered by the military leadership of the Ottoman empire to eradicate the Armenian people from Anatolia in what is now eastern Turkey.

Turkey takes a sharply different view, saying hundreds of thousands of both Turks and Armenians lost their lives as Ottoman forces battled the Russian Empire for control of eastern Anatolia during World War I.