Turkish officials continued to vent their fury at Pope Francis after he called the mass killing of Armenians a century ago “the first genocide of the 20th century,” at a commemorative mass at the Vatican, reported The New York Times.

The latest outraged response came from Volkan Bozkir, Turkey’s minister for European affairs, who suggested that Argentines as whole, and not just the pope, had been brainwashed by rich and powerful Armenians in their midst.

In remarks broadcast on national television, Bozkir began by reminding reporters that Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936, is “an Argentine.” Bozkir then hinted that the country has a dark past of its own.

“Argentina was a country that welcomed the leading executors of the Jewish Holocaust, Nazi torturers, with open arms,” he said.