Turkey Prepares for Pope Benedict's Visit

The Pope could be forgiven for feeling nervous when he visits Turkey next week for his first sojourn in a predominantly Muslim country.

The main reason for Benedict XVI's trip is to meet the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

The planned meeting is the latest attempt at rapprochement between Christianity's two great branches after the schism of 1054, which followed a long feud over papal authority and liturgical differences.

But inevitably, the world will focus on how the Pope is received by Turkey's 67 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslims.

So sensitive on various fronts is his visit that the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads an Islamist government, and his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, have made themselves scarce. The two will be away at a Nato meeting throughout the visit. And Mehmet Aydin, the state minister responsible for the ministry of religious affairs, is off to Germany. The list of absentees prompted one Turkish commentator to jokingly speculate that the pontiff appeared to have an infectious disease.

So it has fallen to the deputy prime minister, Mehmet Ali Sahin, to lead the welcoming party for the Pope, who will also meet Muslim, Catholic and Jewish leaders.

The Pope brings a certain amount of baggage. He ensured an awkward reception in Turkey with a lecture at a German university on September 12 in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying the teachings of the prophet Muhammad were "evil and inhuman", particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

Despite being buried in a long academic discourse on violence and religion, the remarks triggered anger in the Muslim world. Many people are still smarting at the perceived slight, and Turkish Muslims are expected to turn out in force to show their disapproval.

The Islamist Felicity party plans to ferry 75,000 people by bus to Istanbul on Sunday to protest, days before the Pope's arrival. In anticipation of large demonstrations during his visit, Turkish police and troops are on full alert and navy commandos will patrol the Bosphorus Straits in inflatable boats.

Turkish concern about the Pope predates his September comments: many remember his remarks in 2004, when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that Turkey should build ties with the Islamic world rather than the EU. This is where the Pope's visit shades into politics.

Turkey is currently knocking at the door of the EU. But enlargement fatigue, now that membership stands at 25 countries, and doubts - especially in France and Germany - over whether Ankara belongs to the European club have dogged negotiations.

And the issue of Cyprus remains vexed, with Turkey refusing to open its ports to the divided island. Turkish officials say they will not compromise unless the EU lifts an international embargo against the northern, Turkish-speaking area, which Turkey alone recognises.

The EU has also accused Turkey of failing to protect religious minorities. "Turkey's approach to minority rights remains unchanged," the European commission said in a 2006 progress report earlier this month. "Non-Muslim religious communities have no access to legal personality and continue to face restricted property rights. They encounter problems in the management of their foundations and in recovering property by judicial means."

Christians have often complained of discrimination in Turkey, and Mr Erdogan has agreed to religious freedom as a precondition for EU admission. But the 32,000-member Catholic church, which has vicariates in Istanbul and Anatolia and an archdiocese at Izmir, is still demanding juridical recognition.

Turkey's treatment of Catholics obviously concerns the Pope, who has voiced his own worries at the lack of religious freedom of Christians in predominantly Muslim countries. The Pope has also said too many Muslim clerics are willing to tolerate, if not actively encourage, violence.

With so many currents, religious and political, no wonder Mr Erdogan decided to skip a meeting with this exalted guest. With presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007, the Islamist-led government of Mr Erdogan wants to avoid doing anything that offends his own nationalists and Islamist supporters. For the prime minister, the papal visit is nothing if not a hornet's nest.