The leaders of France and Russia today joined ceremonies marking the centenary of the massacre of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces, a hugely emotional event that remains a diplomatic minefield.
During a commemoration at a hilltop memorial in the Armenian capital Yerevan, French President Francois Hollande urged modern day Turkey to end its refusal to recognise the massacre as genocide, saying he bowed in memory of the victims.
"Important words have already been said in Turkey, but others are still expected, so that shared grief can become shared destiny," Hollande told an audience that also included the leaders of Cyprus and Serbia and delegates from some 60 countries.
President Vladimir Putin for his part said Russia was standing shoulder to shoulder with ex-Soviet Armenia, still a close ally for Moscow in the region.
"There is no and cannot be justification for mass murder of people," said Putin.
The Russian leader also used the commemorations to call on France to restore ties after a year of tensions over Ukraine, signalling his apparent desire to break out of international isolation.
"I believe that we have to look for ways to restore our ties and I believe that it's in everyone's interest," he said.
Earlier in the day the leaders, walking in the rain, laid flowers at a memorial commemorating the victims.
Each put a yellow rose at the centre of a wreath resembling a forget-me-not, a flower that has become a symbol of the genocide remembrance.
"I am grateful to all those who are here to once again confirm your commitment to human values, to say that nothing is forgotten, that after 100 years we remember," Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian told his guests.
But the patchy list of foreign dignitaries attending the commemorations highlighted a lack of international consensus over Armenia's bid to get the massacres recognised internationally as a genocide.
More than 20 nations -- including France and Russia but not the United States -- have so far recognised the genocide, a definition supported by numerous historians, but vehemently opposed by Turkey.
Germany became the latest country to recognise the genocide, with President Joachim Gauck saying Thursday that his country, then an ally of the Ottomans, bore partial blame for the bloodletting.
The Armenian Church yesterday conferred sainthood on the genocide victims in what was believed to be the biggest canonisation service in history.
Muslim Turkey, which was born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, has refused to call the slaughter of Christian Armenians genocide.
Ankara concedes that up to 500,000 people were killed, but says this was mostly due to fighting and starvation during World War I, when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
