On Friday, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier omitted the label “genocide” when addressing the massacres of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, during World War I, reported Deutche Welle.

“Past atrocities cannot be reduced to a single word or to a dispute over a word,” he said on a visit to the Estonian capital city Tallinn.

And according to the AFP news agency, the spokesperson of the German government, Steffen Seibert, said that commemoration of the victims of “murderous displacement and persecution” should lie in the center of discussion. Historians should evaluate the incidents, he added.

The German Green and Left party, however, label the massacres as “genocide.”

Also among the ruling Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) politicians, criticism has risen over the reluctance of the government.

Erika Steinbach, a CDU politician and the president of the Federation of Expelles said, “now it’s time to give up reluctance and to acknowledge the genocide on Armenians officially.”