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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, and stated that a full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests, including Turkey’s, Armenia’s, and America’s, U.S. Department of State acting spokeswoman Marie Harf said at the daily press briefing on Tuesday.

Her comment came in response to the question: “Pope Francis over the weekend and his characterization of the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks a hundred years ago as the first genocide of the 20th century. And since we are marking the anniversary, if you could restate the U.S. position on what happened?”

“One of the principles, I think, that’s guided the Administration’s work in this area and in atrocity prevention more broadly is that nations are stronger and they progress by acknowledging and reckoning with pretty painful elements of their past; doing so is really essential to building a different, more tolerant future. And I think that sort of guides how we look at this and other issues,” she added.

Asked about the reaction to the Pope, Ms Harf said, “Nothing beyond what I just said.”

In response about the question about U.S. efforts to ask for Turkey to make public acknowledgement, she said, “Nothing more than I just said.”

She did not comment either on Turkey’s reaction to the Pope’s address at the Armenian Genocide centennial Mass in the Vatican.