Armenia commemorates mass killing of civilians by Ottoman Turks

Armenia has organized commemorations to mark the centenary of the start of killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks. A ceremony, taking place at the memorial for the victims on the outskirts of the capital, Yerevan, will see guests laying flowers and the presidents of Russia and France in attendance.

Turkey has is strongly against describing the killings as genocide and the dispute has soured relations between Turkey and Armenia. While Turkey accepts that atrocities were committed, it argues there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people. Turkey maintains that many innocent Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.

A memorial service will also be held in Turkey on Friday and its prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has said the country will "share the pain" of Armenians, while reiterating Turkey's stance that the killings were not genocide.

The mass killing had seen hundreds of thousands of Armenians die in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, whose empire was disintegrating. Many of the victims were civilians deported to barren desert regions where they died of starvation and thirst, although thousands also died in massacres.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million people were killed in the events while Turkey says the number of deaths was much smaller.

Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as ‘genocide’ - and over 20 states agree in this assesment, including France, Germany, Canada and Russia, and various international bodies including the European Parliament. Turkey, however, rejects the term genocide, maintaining that many of the dead were killed in clashes during World War One, and that many ethnic Turks also suffered in the conflict.