ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey said on Friday that it rejected and condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin calling the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide.

"Considering the mass killings, exiles...that Russia has carried out in the Caucasus, Central Asia and in eastern Europe over the past century...we think it should be the one that knows best what a genocide is and what its legal dimensions are," a foreign ministry statement said.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Hugh Lawson)