Turkish potboiler stirs ahead of Pope's visit

ISTANBUL, Sep 22: Visiting Turkey for the first time, Pope Benedict survives an assassination attempt staged by Western intelligence agencies bent on provoking a war with Iran.

Sound far-fetched? ''The Assassination of the Pope'' is pure fiction, of course. But a pot-boiler that few would have taken seriously 10 days ago has touched a deep vein of anxiety in Turkey, which has invited Benedict to visit on November 28.

Turkish leaders, like much of the Muslim world, were angered by the Pope's remarks last week that appeared to portray Islam as a religion tainted by violence.

Benedict has said he is sorry for hurting Muslims' feelings and the government says it still wants him to visit, but his remarks have fanned Turkish distrust of the church and one group of workers has even called for the Pope's arrest when he lands.

Yucel Kaya's novel depicts a sprawling conspiracy by Western intelligence agencies, Italian freemasons and members of the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei as featured in Dan Brown's best-selling ''The Da Vinci Code'' to kill the Pope during his trip to Turkey.

Kaya said he hoped his thriller, which came out in May and has sold only 5,000 copies so far, might in fact help Benedict.

''One reason for writing this book was that such a thing could happen and Turkey would suffer as a result. So the book will encourage the Turkish state to take (security) measures,'' he told Reuters in an interview.

Kaya said he had become concerned for his own security since the novel began attracting media attention.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

''I am getting worried about my life but I don't regret writing it,'' he said at his publishing house's offices in an old district of Istanbul as he expanded on the outlandish conspiracy theories which form the backbone of the book.

Kaya says his research on the Vatican had led him to believe shadowy groups could potentially conspire to kill the Pope.

Subtitled ''Who will kill the Pope in Istanbul?'', his book tells of how intelligence agencies stir up Islamists in Turkey and Benedict survives a bomb attack made to look as if it is carried out by Tehran in order to spark a U S attack on Iran.

The assassination attempt is also motivated by Opus Dei worries that the Pope's visit will bring a rapprochement between Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate based in Istanbul.

Church officials described the novel as troubling.

''We don't think there is a serious threat, but this book is just one more of the worrying signs we see in Turkey,'' one Catholic priest said, on condition of anonymity.

This year, a youth shot dead an Italian priest while he prayed in his church in the Black Sea port of Trabzon; a French priest survived a knife attack in Samsun, also on the Black Sea; and a Slovenian Franciscan friar received death threats.

Turkey is also the home of Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried in 1981 to kill Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Agca is now serving a jail sentence in Istanbul for murder and robbery.

In a bizarre twist, Agca urged Benedict to cancel his trip.

''As someone who knows these matters well, I say your life is in danger. Don't come to Turkey,'' he said in comments released in a statement this week by his lawyer Mustafa Demirbag.

Underlining wider concerns for Benedict's safety, the European Union's top security official, Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, urged EU states yesterday to take ''very seriously'' threats to the Pope after his comments on Islam.

REUTERS