Pope Francis on Sunday released peace doves on the Armenia-Turkey border in a gesture of reconciliation as Ankara slammed the pontiff for denouncing the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as “genocide”.

Standing on a terrace of the Khor Virap monastery, Pope Francis and the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church Kareki- II released the two white birds in the direction of Mount Ararat — the Biblical final resting place of Noah’s Ark — now in modern-day Turkey. MORE