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Pope Benedict XVI Arrives in Turkey

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 November 2006, 06:00 CST

By BRIAN MURPHY

ANKARA, Turkey - Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Turkey Tuesday on his first visit to a Muslim country, where he will seek to ease anger over his perceived criticism of Islam and mend a split with the world's Orthodox Christians.

The pope's airplane landed in the Turkish capital of Ankara, amid a massive security operation designed to thwart any attempts to disrupt the pontiff's four-day trip at a time of heightened tension between the West and Islam.

Before departing for Ankara, the pontiff said in Rome that he was embarking on a "trip of dialogue, brotherhood and reconciliation at this difficult moment in history."

Turkish police monitored the highway leading to Ankara from the airport, where Turkish and Vatican flags waved in a light breeze. Snipers climbed atop buildings and hilltops. In wooded areas along the route, soldiers in camouflage fatigues set up observation points and sniffer dogs passed along bridges.

Benedict's journey is extraordinarily sensitive, a closely watched pilgrimage full of symbolism that could offer hope of religious reconciliation, or deepen what many say is a growing divide between the Christian and Islamic worlds.

The outcome depends partly on the words and gestures of Benedict, who triggered an outcry in September when he quoted a 14th century Christian emperor who characterized the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman."

The Vatican said the speech was an attempt to highlight the incompatibility of faith and violence, and Benedict later expressed regret for the violent Muslim backlash.

The original goal of the pope's trip to Turkey was to meet Bartholomew I, leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. The two major branches of Christianity represented by Bartholomew and Benedict split in 1054 over differences in opinion on the power of the papacy, and the two spiritual heads will meet in an attempt to breach the divide and reunite the churches.

Benedict leaves Ankara on Wednesday for Ephesus, where the Virgin Mary is thought to have spent her last years, and will then travel to Istanbul, a former Christian metropolis known as Constantinople until Ottoman Turks conquered it in 1453.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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