Pope heads to Muslim Turkey on delicate trip

ANKARA, Nov 28: Pope Benedict starts one of the most delicate trips ever made by a pontiff today when he travels to Turkey to face simmering anger sparked by his comments on Islam and his past opposition to Ankara's EU bid.

Underlining the tensions, Benedict, on his first visit to a Muslim country since becoming pontiff last year, will travel through the streets of Ankara and Istanbul in a closed car, not in the glass-sided ''popemobile'' usually used on papal trips.

Most Turks seem indifferent to the visit by the Pope, who is spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, but security will be very tight with protests expected by a small but vociferous minority of Islamists and hardline nationalists.

Today's newspapers struck a positive note.

''Benvenuto!'' (''Welcome'' in Italian) said the Sabah daily, hailing the Pontiff's visit as ''historic'' at a time of increased tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.

Sabah, quoting diplomatic sources, said Benedict would tell Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan at their brief meeting in Ankara airport that he had dropped his former opposition to Turkey joining the European Union.

Before becoming pope last year, German-born Benedict had said Turkey's Muslim religion meant it did not belong in the EU.

ANGERED MUSLIMS

Benedict also infuriated Muslims worldwide in September with a lecture that seemed to depict Islam as an irrational religion tainted with violence. He later expressed regret at the pain his comments caused but stopped short of a full apology.

The Milliyet newspaper said President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who invited the Pope to Turkey, will present him with a copy of the imperial order for tolerance issued by the Ottoman Sultan who seized Istanbul from the Christian Byzantine Greeks in 1453.

After his talks with Sezer and with Turkey's top Muslim official, the Pope will visit a site near the Aegean port of Izmir where the Virgin Mary is reputed to have lived and died.

The main focus of his four-day trip will be talks on Christian unity with Patriarch Bartholomew, Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians.

But in a conciliatory gesture towards his Muslim hosts, Benedict will also visit Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque.

His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, made the first visit by a pontiff to a mosque during a trip to Damascus in 2001.

REUTERS