File photo of White House.
The White House avoided referring to the mass World War I killings of Armenians as genocide Tuesday, as a diplomatic row raged ahead of the tragedy's 100th anniversary.
White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and one of President Barack Obama's top foreign policy advisors hosted Armenian American leaders at the White House to discuss the centennial.
McDonough and Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes "discussed the significance of this occasion for honoring the 1.5 million lives extinguished during that horrific period," the National Security Council said in a statement.
Sticking to the White House's avoidance of the term, the statement said the United States would "use the occasion to urge a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts."
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
Turkey has insisted it was not a "genocide" and has reacted angrily to the use of the word, most recently by Pope Francis.
Turkey is a key US ally and a fellow member of NATO.
During his 2008 campaign for the White House, then senator Barack Obama had pledged to "recognize the Armenian genocide."