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[ December 2006 ]

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ALLIANCE OF CIVILIZATIONS:

ACTION PLAN TO IMPROVE CROSS CULTURAL RELATIONS -

THE REPORT OF THE HIGH-LEVEL GROUP

In order to de-escalate extremism, it is necessary to correct misinformation and encourage constructive action.

The Report of the High-level Group was presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and to Prime Ministers José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 13 November 2006 at the final meeting of the High-level Group in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Follow this link to download the Report:  www.unaoc.org 

To advance the Alliance of Civilizations, the UN Secretary-General established a High-level Group of eminent personalities and tasked this Group with generating a report containing an analysis of the rise in cross-cultural polarization and extremism and a set of practical recommendations to counter this phenomenon. The High-level Group met five times from November 2005 to November 2006, at the conclusion of which it produced a report which takes a multi-polar approach within which it prioritizes relations between Muslim and Western societies.

The report is structured in two parts: Part I presents an analysis of the global context and of the state of relations between Muslim and Western societies. It concludes with a set of policy recommendations, indicating the High-level Group's belief that certain political steps are pre-requisites to any substantial and lasting improvement in relations between Muslim and Western societies. Part II of the report reflects the High-level Group's view that tensions across cultures have spread beyond the political level into the hearts and minds of populations. To counter this trend, the Group analyzes and presents recommendations in each of four thematic areas: Education, Youth, Migration, and Media. The Report concludes with the High-level Group's suggestions for the implementation of its recommendations.

For news on High-level Group meeting in Istanbul, Turkey:

Hispano-Turco.com [ Dialogue of Civilizations Update November 2006 ]

The Alliance of Civilizations

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has launched an initiative, co-sponsored by the Prime Ministers of Spain and Turkey, for an Alliance of Civilizations.

The initiative responds to a broad consensus across nations, cultures and religions that all societies are interdependent, bound together in their development and security, and in their environmental, economic and financial well-being.

The Alliance seeks to forge collective political will and to mobilize concerted action at the institutional and civil society levels to overcome the prejudice, misperceptions and polarization that militate against such a consensus. And it hopes to contribute to a coalescing global movement which, reflecting the will of the vast majority of people, rejects extremism in any society.

Events of recent years have exacerbated mutual suspicion, fear and misunderstanding between Islamic and Western societies. This environment has been exploited by extremists throughout the world.

Only a comprehensive coalition will be able to avert any further deterioration of relations between societies and nations, which could threaten international stability. The Alliance seeks to counter this trend by establishing a paradigm of mutual respect between civilizations and cultures.

To guide this initiative, the Secretary-General, in consultation with the co-sponsors, has established a High-level Group (HLG) of eminent persons.

Turkey, Spain seek to bring up Alliance of Civilizations at NATO summit

As part of efforts to bridge differences between cultures and civilizations, Turkey and Spain are exerting efforts to add the Alliance of Civilization issue to the agenda of the NATO summit to be held next week in Riga.

Turkey and Spain presented a motion for touching on the Alliance of Civilizations Project in the reports of the NATO summit which will be released following the meetings.

A Spanish government spokesperson said that negotiations about the subject are still continuing, adding that there is no problem in the NATO summit report possibly reflecting support to Alliance of Civilizations initiative.

But diplomatic sources denied the remarks of the Spanish spokesperson, saying that Alliance of Civilizations initiative won't be on the agenda of NATO. Sources also said that the initiative will be referred under one of the sub-reports covering terrorism.

In related news, Spanish daily ABC said on Friday that the Alliance of Civilizations initiative will be taken into consideration during the NATO summit. The daily stated that NATO leaders don't feel special interest in the initiative, but will express their support for it in NATO documents.

ABHaber 26.11.2006 thenewanatolian www.abhaber.com 

Erdogan calls on pope to back 'alliance of civilizations'

Pope Benedict XVI leaving the Atatürk Mausoleum in Ankara, Tuesday. ((AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis))

Pope supports EU membership, Turkish leader says

Associated Press - International Herald Tribune Nov. 28, 2006 www.iht.com 

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey's prime minister said Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI told him he wanted Turkey to join the European Union. The Vatican said only that it views as favorable the steps that Turkey is taking to meet EU membership requirements.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan greeted Benedict when he arrived in the Turkish capital on a flight from Rome, and the two men had a private discussion at the airport. Erdogan, whose Muslim country is engaged in a troubled bid to join the EU, later told reporters:

"I said to the pope, 'I ask for your help on the way to the European Union,' and on this subject he said, 'You know we are not politicians, but we hope Turkey enters the European Union.'"

Asked about Erdogan's remark, a senior Vatican official said the Vatican favors the steps Turkey is taking to meet EU membership requirements. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, noting that the Vatican is not a "political entity."

In a statement, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said:

"The Holy See has neither the power nor the specific political task of intervening on the exact point regarding the entry of Turkey into the European Union. It's not in its scope. However, it views positively and encourages the road of dialogue and of moving toward integration in Europe on the basis of common values and principles."

As a cardinal, before he became pope, Benedict said Turkey represented a culture "in permanent contrast to Europe" and has repeatedly called for a return in Europe to fundamental Christian values.

At a press conference earlier Tuesday, a representative of the Vatican noted that Benedict's earlier remarks were made before he became pope.

"When a man becomes the pope ... it's in a sense expected that his personal views recede into the background," Bishop Brian Farrell said.

He said the Vatican was not a member of the European Union and had no official stance on Turkey's membership bid.

The pope's perceived opposition to Turkey's EU bid fueled Turkish criticism of Benedict, whose visit to Turkey is his first to a Muslim nation.

Turkey has conducted economic and other reforms in an effort to join the EU, but a dispute over divided Cyprus and other issues threatens to derail its campaign.

"I told the pope that Islam was a religion of peace and tolerance and he shared the same ideas," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a press briefing after meeting Pope Benedict XVI at Ankara airport.

Erdogan and the pope talked for about 25 minutes at Esenboga Airport in the Turkish capital Ankara.

Erdogan gave a statement on his meeting with the pope just before his departure for Riga, Latvia to attend a NATO summit.

He said that the short meeting was about the Alliance of Civilizations and the interfaith dialogue.

Erdogan stated that the pope's visit to a predominantly Muslim country was very important and right on time with the declaration of the Alliance of Civilizations initiative, which Erdogan co-chairs with his Spanish counterpart Zapatero.

Saying that the government did its best to welcome the pontiff in a hospitable manner, Erdogan expressed his wishes that the visit would be fruitful for world peace.

Asked about the pope's attitude on Turkey's EU membership, Erdogan replied: "I said that I expected his support on membership and the pope responded, ’We are not politicians but would like Turkey to join the EU.’"

For further information please visit http://www.cihannews.com

Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI by Muslim Scholars and Leaders (2006-10-12)

In an unprecedented move, an open letter signed by 38 leading Muslim religious scholars and leaders around the world was sent to Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2006. The letter, which is the outcome of a joint effort in a spirit of goodwill, to respond to some of the remarks made by the Pope during his lecture at the University of Regensburg on Sept. 12, 2006. It was signed by top religious authorities and all the eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by the signatories, including a woman scholar. In this respect the letter is unique in the history of interfaith relations.

By Jan Repa
BBC Europe analyst  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6192814.stm 

The Pope's meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew will be keenly watched

Pope Benedict XVI, spiritual leader of the world's Catholics, is to meet Patriarch Bartholomew - "first among equals" of the leaders of the Orthodox Christian churches - in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The Pope's visit to overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey has already provoked controversy - with some nationalist and Islamist groups insisting he is not welcome.

However, the Catholic-Orthodox relationship has also been fraught with difficulty, even before the two churches split nearly 1,000 years ago.

On the same day as he meets Patriarch Bartholomew, Benedict XVI will also visit one of the world's architectural marvels.

Built nearly 1,500 years ago by the East Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian, it was known as the Haghia Sofia - or Church of Holy Wisdom.

 

A lost symbol

Converted into a mosque by the conquering Turks in 1453, it became a museum in the 1920s.

For many Orthodox Christians, it remains the lost symbol of their faith.

Some Muslim groups would like it to be a mosque once more.

If Benedict XVI offers a prayer here, the result could be religious dynamite.

 

Pope Benedict's visit to the Haghia Sophia will be closely watched

The history of Istanbul - once known as Constantinople - exemplifies the clash of religions, politics and brute power.

Catholicism and Orthodoxy were once twin aspects of the same officially approved version of Christianity, established under the Roman Empire after its conversion in the 4th Century.

Catholicism was dominant in the "Latin" West; Orthodoxy in the Greek-speaking East.

Over the centuries, political, cultural and theological differences widened to the point where the two Churches formally split in 1054.

In 1204, Catholic Crusaders sacked Constantinople.

 

Reconciliation

Though roundly condemned by the Pope of the day, the sack is still seen by many Orthodox as an act of "Latin treachery" - and continues to mobilise anti-Catholic sentiment in traditionally Orthodox countries like Greece and Russia.

It took until 1964 for a Pope, Paul VI, to meet an Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, on neutral ground, in Jerusalem.

Recent Popes and Patriarchs have pledged to work for reconciliation and greater unity.

But significant obstacles remain.

One is the status of the Pope - seen by Catholics as the final arbiter of theological and moral truth.

For the Orthodox churches, such authority derives from the first Seven Councils of the Church - the last of which occurred in 787 AD - whose rulings cannot be altered or added to.

 

Unfair treatment

Other differences concern issues like the nature of Holy Trinity; the relationship between science and Faith; whether God can ever be fully understood; or the existence - or otherwise - of Purgatory.

There are also tensions between the various Orthodox churches - with some, like the Russian Orthodox Church, traditionally vying for the "number one" position; and some suggesting that the Patriarch of Constantinople may be too keen on his links with Rome.

One subject which may well come up during Benedict XVI's trip to Turkey is the allegation that Christians are not treated fairly.

In the 1920s, when the Turkish Republic was established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, there were 200,000 Orthodox ethnic Greeks in Istanbul.

Today there are 5000.

Istanbul's Orthodox Christian school of theology was closed by the authorities in 1971 - and remains so, despite appeals from the European Union.

Orthodoxy, not Islam, draws pope to Turkey

By David O'Reilly www.philly.com 

Inquirer Staff Writer Tue, Nov. 28, 2006

While much of the world wonders whether Pope Benedict XVI will be met with violent Muslim demonstrations - or worse - when he visits Istanbul this week, it is Catholic relations with Orthodoxy, not Islam, that bring the pontiff to Turkey.

Muslims worldwide are still incensed by remarks Benedict made in September, when he linked Islam with violence and in the eyes of many insulted the prophet Muhammad.

Some don't want him to come at all; others are hoping for some words or signs that might repair the damage and restore Catholic-Islamic relations to the warmer days they knew under Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

But unlike John Paul - who once kissed a copy of the Koran - Benedict is not a man of grand, theatrical gestures.

And, regardless of what assurances of respect and admiration for the Muslim world the pontiff might issue this week, the core of his visit will be a Thursday meeting with Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and spiritual leader of the world's 270 million Orthodox Christians.

While Westerners tend to think of ecumenism as rapprochement between Catholics and Protestants, Benedict "sees the greatest commonality and hope for ecumenism as with the Orthodox, not the Protestants," said Benedict's biographer David Gibson.

"He sees little theological difference [between Catholicism and Orthodoxy], and he identifies very much with that Orthodoxy's dynamism, its polity, its liturgy, and the fact that it speaks one of the original languages of the church," said Gibson, whose book, The Rule of Benedict, came out in September.

Catholic author and columnist George Weigel, who wrote the definitive biography of John Paul II, agreed. "This is not about the pope's visiting an Islamic country," he said yesterday. "The pope is visiting the patriarch."

Both Benedict and Bartholomew are committed to resolving the bitter theological differences that have split their ancient churches for more than 1,000 years.

No major breakthrough is anticipated, but the two are expected to sign a proclamation of affection between Catholicism and Orthodoxy at the close of their meeting, according to the Rev. Dr. Frank Marangos, executive director for communications for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

"This is not a public-relations ploy or means to a political end," Marangos said in a phone interview from Istanbul. "The real intent of this trip, which was planned a year ago, was for the pope to visit the patriarchate and participate in prayer."

Weigel said he nevertheless expected the meeting to be eclipsed in news reports by any demonstrations, violence, or papal gestures to Islam.

In September, the pontiff incensed much of the Muslim world when, in a lecture to German theologians at Regensburg University, he warned against the demise of religious reason.

Most of his Regensburg remarks were directed at the collapse of Christianity in Europe, but he also pointed to Islamic jihadism, and quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who called Islam "evil and inhuman."

Those remarks so incensed Muslims that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan originally said his schedule would not permit him to meet with Benedict during this trip; yesterday, he agreed to greet him at Ankara's airport before departing for the NATO summit in Latvia.

Erdogan's reluctance to spend time with Benedict might also be based on concern that the pope will call attention to Turkey's repression of non-Islamic faiths, which has slowed its efforts to join the European Union.

While Turkey is officially secular, the government recently closed the nation's only Orthodox seminary and restricts public worship by non-Muslims.

Weigel said he hoped Benedict does not apologize for his September remarks and instead "lifts up for the attention of the world the very difficult circumstances in which the patriarchate is obliged to operate in Turkey."

But Ali Khan, executive director of the Islamic Council of America, said in a phone interview yesterday from Chicago that he had "great expectations" the pope would make a "significant gesture" toward the Muslim world.

"I think the [Muslim] reaction to his remarks was extreme," Khan said. But, he added - perhaps more hopefully than accurately - the comments "did not do permanent damage."

"He has not been pope for very long," Khan said. "If he admits he made a mistake, let's move on."

Benedict's paying of respects to Ataturk was one strand of his attempt to soothe Islamic opposition to his visit. Both the pope and the Turkish government have spent the last few days exchanging expressions of goodwill and mutual respect.

Everyone is seeking to lower the emotional temperature -- with the characteristic exception of the European Union, which has chosen the eve of the pope's visit to announce that Turkey will not be admitted to the EU unless it opens its ports to Greek Cyprus. If the extraordinary security precautions put in place by the Turks for Benedict's protection have to be activated today, Brussels will share a large dollop of the blame.

But as he stood before the tomb of Ataturk today, the pope might have reflected on how well and badly he dealt with religion and politics. In his day Ataturk gave far more offense to pious Muslims than Benedict has done.

As part of his attempt to exclude Islam from a newly secular public life, Ataturk banned the public wearing of Islamic headgear, namely the fez. And as late as 1930 he executed 12 people for defying the ban on the fez.

Turks accepted the exclusion of Islam from public life -- and many other reforms -- because Ataturk was a national hero who had saved Turkey from invasion and defeat after World War I. An entire Kemalist political establishment has governed Turkey and kept it a secular democracy ever since. Turkey is a NATO ally, a growing economy and a bastion of genuine stability in the region.

But most Turks (about 98 percent) are Muslim, and a large number want Islam to be given greater public recognition and expression. Their women wear the headscarf as a political-cum-religious gesture as once their men wore the fez.

Moderate Islamists support the governing Justice and Development party; radical ones smaller parties. The Turkish armed forces, who see themselves as the ultimate guardian of Ataturk's secular constitution, hold both groups in suspicion. And there are periodic rumors of a military coup to prevent ''creeping Islamicization.''

Much of the furor surrounding Pope Benedict's visit is really a safe and coded way of expressing these tensions. His remarks on Christianity, Islam and Reason in his Regensburg lecture have been distorted by the radical Islamists as an attack on Islam in order to embarrass both their moderate rivals and the Turkish armed forces -- and to whip up support for themselves. The pope is an almost innocent bystander, but one who might get caught in the crossfire.

The obvious way forward is to make some concessions to the moderate Islamists -- allowing greater public expression of Islam -- but in a larger context of entrenching a secular constitution that embodies freedom of religion and free speech. Turkish membership of the European Union would make such a compromise both possible and permanent. To their credit, the governing moderate Islamists have pushed strongly for such an outcome. If Turkey is excluded (and inevitably angered by its exclusion), the likelihood is that over time some form of Islamism is going to overpower the remnants of Kemalist secularism.

That, however, is a secondary question for both Europe and the pope. Whether or not Turkey enters the EU, the West is going to have to decide how to handle Islam and the millions of Muslims in its midst. A first step must be to separate out the radical Islamists from the great body of Muslims.

Even if we succeed in isolating and defeating radical Islamists, however, we will still face a problem: Islam is a strong faith that is uncomfortable both with a secular state and with full religious liberty. (So was Catholicism in our recent history.) Kemalism has shown that it cannot be permanently suppressed. The Turkish jury is still out on whether an unreformed Islam can be politically accommodated in a secular state. So the last question is whether Islam can come to terms with liberty and secularism at a deeper religious level.

That was the question raised in the pope's speech at Regensburg. He then asked Muslims to abandon any interpretation of jihad as a legitimate war against other religions and to re-examine their view of the proper relationship between God and Reason. Given that the Christian God appeals to reason, He rejects forced conversions, holy wars and the murder of apostates. That understanding has not always marked the history of Christianity, but it describes the Church of today.

Benedict was inviting Muslims to consider whether their own faith might not benefit from a similar re-examination. His words were misunderstood as hostile and evoked a hostile reaction. But unless the pope and other Christian leaders can freely raise such questions with leading Muslim clerics without inviting either the murder of nuns or threats of assassination, then we will be faced with long and needless conflict.

It is time for some Muslim Benedicts to step forward and continue the dialogue.

Pope Backs Turkey’s Bid to Join Europe

ANKARA, Turkey, Nov. 28 — Pope Benedict XVI came to Turkey on Tuesday carrying a surprise gesture of goodwill aimed at blunting Muslim anger toward him: he blessed Turkey’s long-stalled desire to join the European Union, reversing his position of two years ago.

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Dario Pignatelli/Polaris

Pope Benedict XVI visits the Ataturk Mausoleum during the first day of his pastoral trip to Turkey.

(November 28, 2006)

 

Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP -- Getty Images

The pope visited the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic that Turkey is steadily shifting away from.

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters after a brief meeting with Benedict at the airport here that he had asked the pope to support Turkey in its attempts to become a member of the European Union.

“He said, ‘You know we don’t have a political role, but we wish for Turkey’s entry into the E.U.,’ ” Mr. Erdogan said the pope told him. “His wish is a positive recommendation for us.”

Although the Vatican does not play a formal role in the European Union, the pope’s gesture was nonetheless a piece of political stagecraft at a delicate time both in relations between Muslims and the West and in Benedict’s own damaged reputation among Muslims.

Long before he angered the Muslim world two months ago with a speech criticized as equating Islam with violence, Benedict was disliked here because of comments he made, as a cardinal in 2004, opposing Turkey’s membership in the European Union. As the successor to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey had always stood, he said at the time, “in permanent contrast to Europe.”

But the 79-year-old pope’s concession on Tuesday, at the start of a four-day trip here, seemed to make good on his pledge to heal the wounds between East and West. It may also have the practical effect of tamping down anger here, which led to thick security on Tuesday, with helicopters hovering at the airport, commandoes guarding the pope’s plane and sharpshooters on the roofs of buildings.

It is unclear what effect the pope’s reversal will have on the fraught debate in Western Europe over Turkey’s membership, especially among conservatives who shared the views he expressed as a cardinal two years ago. Much of that opposition is rooted in the increased tension between the West and Islam, including fears of more terrorist attacks in Europe and the already difficult integration of millions of Muslims into Europe.

Some of the problems, though, are tied to the difficulty Turkey has had meeting specific demands of Europe to join the union — and the pope’s visit comes at a particularly sensitive time in Turkey’s talks with European negotiators.

Admission talks, which began this year, have hit a snag over the insistence, by the European Union, that Turkey open its ports and harbors to vessels from Greek Cyprus, an internationally recognized state opposed by Turkey. But officials in Turkey say they cannot do that until an international embargo that has been in place on the Turkish part of the island for more than 20 years is lifted.

Since Benedict did not make any announcement himself, it appeared to some degree a concession won by Mr. Erdogan, in a deft act of diplomacy that many critics said the pope’s speech two months ago lacked. Mr. Erdogan’s government is rooted in a moderate political Islam and, until Monday, he had said he would not be able to meet the pope on this visit. As the leader of the only Muslim country in NATO, he left immediately after to attend a meeting of the Western military alliance in Latvia.

Whatever the pope’s intent, his gesture did appear to achieve a political result in Turkey, where residents interviewed Tuesday said they saw it as a victory for Mr. Erdogan.

Hours later, the pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, released a brief statement repeating that the Vatican has “neither the power nor the specific political task” of gaining Turkey admission to the E.U., in a time of apparently growing opposition to it in Europe.

But Father Lombardi said that the Vatican “views positively and encourages the road of dialogue and of moving toward integration of Turkey in Europe on the basis of common values and principles.”

In Ankara, residents expressed doubts about the pope’s sincerity, and it remains to be seen whether the pope’s gesture will have a warming effect in Turkey, or in the broader Muslim world.

“It’s not support, it’s a lie,” said Hakan Ozgunaydin, a 29-year-old co-owner of an upscale shoe and belt shop in downtown Ankara. “I would expect him to say, ‘those bloody Turks,’ when he leaves this country.”

Merve Celikkol, a 21-year-old physics student, was just as blunt, calling the pope a hypocrite: “How is it possible that he changed so much?”

A number of those interviewed did say they thought the new support was a decisive win for Mr. Erdogan, who has led the push for entry into Europe, at no small political cost to himself.

“This can be his way of confessing his sins for the wrong he has done to the Muslim world,” said Ismail Aytac, a 51-year-old sitting in a luxury watch shop. “After all, he’s human, and humans make mistakes.”

The trip here marks Benedict’s fifth outside Italy since he was elected pope last year, and his first outside the European Union and to a predominantly Muslim country. His main aim in this trip is to visit leaders of the Orthodox patriarchy here, as part of Benedict’s goal to mend the 1,000-year rift between the Roman church and the 220 million Orthodox.

But Christians make up less than half a percent of Turkey’s 72 million people, and as such it was clear this trip would be far different from those to Christian countries, even before he quoted a Byzantine emperor as referring to Islam as “evil and inhuman” in a speech in September in Germany. The trip to Turkey, though a modern and secular democracy, seemed particularly fraught with symbolism: Here Christian and Muslim warriors battled for centuries, as the Byzantine empire founded by Rome’s first Christian emperor gave way to Muslim Ottoman Turks who established their own empire and pushed deep into Europe.

Vincenzo Pinto/AFP — Getty Images

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, right, met with Pope Benedict XVI upon the pope’s arrival at the airport in Ankara today.

(November 28, 2006)

Tolga Adanali/AFP — Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey at their meeting today. Mr. Erdogan said after the meeting that Benedict told him he supported Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

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Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

A pedestrian street in Istanbul, where women in miniskirts and head scarves mingle. Turkey’s traditional secularism is under pressure.

After his plane touched down, the white-robed pope was met at the airport here with a red carpet and a small honor guard, but with none of the music, cheering crowds and waving banners of other trips. Rather, small demonstrations protesting Benedict’s visit were held here and in Istanbul, where the pope will travel on Wednesday.

In brief comments on the plane, Benedict, who had apologized for the at-times violent reaction to his speech, made clear that one of his chief aims was to stimulate a “dialogue” to bring Christians and Muslims, the West and East, closer.

“The scope of this visit is dialogue, brotherhood, a commitment to understanding between cultures, between religions, for reconciliation,” he told reporters before his plane took off from Rome.

Mr. Erdogan, who unexpectedly greeted the pope at his plane, spoke too of the need for greater understanding.

“We are going through a tough period when the culture of violence has been expanding and our world faces disaster scenarios like the clashes of civilizations and polarizations in various directions,” he told reporters after his 20-minute meeting with Benedict. “Therefore, we need mutual understanding among different beliefs and civilizations more than any time in history.”

He said he viewed the pope’s visit as “very important” in building “an alliance of civilizations,” even as he seemed to refer to the pope’s speech about Islam and violence.

“I told him that Islam was a religion of peace and tolerance, and I saw that he shared this view,” he said.

Over the weekend, the Vatican began signaling a warming to the idea of Turkey’s membership in the European Union. Several church officials said the Vatican had no such opposition. The Vatican has never issued a formal position on the issue, In 2004, when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said it would be a “grave error” to admit Turkey, both he and other church officials described it as his personal opinion.

The stalemate over Turkey’s membership has frustrated Turkish officials, who are working toward meetings among European Union members in December.

“Everything is just stuck,” Namik Tan, a spokesman for Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, said Monday. “How can an elected government with all these restrictions over the Turkish Cypriots open its ports without any restrictions? This government has a public here.”

On Tuesday night, officials from the European Union met to set conditions for the future of the talks. Turkish officials expect certain topics in the negotiations to be suspended, but others to continue.

“Look, they said there would be a train crash,” Mr. Erdogan said at the news conference. “Now they say, there is no train crash, but the train slowed down.”

After his meeting with Mr. Erdogan, Benedict visited the grave of Kemal Attaturk, the founder of the secular Turkish state after World War I, creating with much struggle the fullest democracy in the Muslim world.

He met later with the nation’s chief Muslim religious figure, Ali Bardakoglu, who was among the fiercest critics of the pope’s speech two months ago, and Turkey’s president, Ahmed Necdet Sezer. Later in the evening, he met with members of the world’s diplomatic corps here in Turkey’s capital. At every stop, he stressed the need for greater joint efforts to end terror, war and misunderstanding.

“I appreciate the efforts of numerous countries currently engaged in rebuilding peace in Lebanon, Turkey, among them,” he told the ambassadors. “In your presence, ambassadors, I appeal once more to the vigilance of the international community, that it not abandon its responsibilities, but make every effort to promote peace and dialogue.”

Analysis: Many Turks don't trust Pope
Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey this week is unlikely to be a smooth affair as many Turks view the pontiff as the personification of European hostility toward their country, Time magazine reports in this analysis. Harsh words for Islam by the Pope in a speech earlier this year and difficulties over negotiations to join the European Union have soured many Turks on Europe and made them suspicious of the West, Time writes.
www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1563020,00.html  

Why Turks Are Not Pleased to See the Pope

Posted Monday, Nov. 27, 2006
It took a 12 hour bus ride for Hafize Kucuk and Sevgi Ozen, 21-year-old university students, to get from the northern Turkish city of Samsun to an Istanbul rally Sunday protesting Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey this week. But they thought little of the inconvenience. "This is a man who insulted our Prophet [Muhammad] and didn't even apologize properly," said Kucuk. "Now he's coming to our country, a Muslim country. This is unacceptable. We came to make our voices heard."

The rally, attended by some 15,000 Islamist protestors, was a colorful affair. Huge, lurid posters linking Benedict to Crusader knights. Hundreds of young men, wearing white headbands inscribed with the message "We don't want this sly Pope in Turkey", chanted angry slogans.

Militant protestors are a minority, but many Turks are deeply skeptical about a visit they view as part of a Western design against Turkey, which is mostly Muslim but officially secular.

The Pope could not have arrived at a more sensitive time: Turkey and the European Union appear on a collision course over whether the bloc will admit Turkey and its 70 million citizens. Support in Turkey for the EU has plummeted — a poll last week showed 60 percent in favor of suspending membership talks. And for many Turks, Benedict, who once warned that letting Turkey into the EU would be "a grave error against the tide of history," personifies European hostility towards them.

"At this point most Turks are deeply suspicious of the West," says Cengiz Aktar, political science professor at Galatasaray University. "They see this visit as yet another development to be suspicious of."

The protests have made strange bedfellows of the far left and the nationalist right. Their chief grievance concerns the Pope's scheduled talks with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians. The talks, many Turks believe, are aimed not just at healing the centuries-old schism between the two churches, but at paving the way for creating in Turkey a Vatican-like entity for the Orthodox.

Every detail on the Pope's four-day itinerary is fraught with complications, including a planned visit to Hagia Sophia, a sixth century Byzantine church which was converted to a mosque in 1453 when the Ottomans conquered Istanbul. It was transformed into a museum in 1935.

Nationalists believe the Pope's visit to Hagia Sophia, a major tourist attraction, is a sign of Christian desire to reclaim it as a church. Newspapers have speculated feverishly over whether he will pray while inside.

"Its not that we have anything personal against the Pope," says Zafer Emanetoglu, head of the youth branch of the Islamist party which organized Sunday's rally. "But we know that he is here as part of a greater plan against Turkey, and to unite Christians against Muslims."

The Pope's visit has also put the moderate, Islamist-rooted government in a tight spot. With elections slated for next year, Turkish newspapers have speculated that being photographed with the Pope could alienate constituents of the ruling party — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used his attendance at a NATO summit in Latvia to excuse himself from meeting with the pontiff.

To prevent any protests turning violent, a tight security plan — similar to that used for U.S. President George W. Bush on a recent visit — will be in place. Thousands of policemen, including snipers on rooftops, are on duty in Istanbul, and the papal entourage will feature hi-tech scrambling devices and decoy cars.

"Every security precaution has been taken," said a Turkish foreign ministry official. "Turks are a tolerant people, I don't imagine there will be any problems." Still, Ankara will be holding its breath until Friday, when the Pope flies home.

The Pope, Europe and Islam

... And Where He's Still in the Dark

Posted Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006 www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561146,00.html 
Since delivering the speech in which he quoted a 14th century Emperor who said the Prophet of Islam had given nothing positive to humanity and had commanded followers to use violence to spread their faith, Pope Benedict XVI has been subjected to bitter Muslim reaction around the world. Benedict has responded by saying he regretted the consequences of his misunderstood words, but he did not retract his statement--perhaps rightly so. After all, he had simply cited an ancient Emperor. It is Benedict's right to exercise his critical opinion without being expected to apologize for it--whether he's an ordinary Roman Catholic or the Pope.

But that doesn't mean he was right. Muslim attention has focused mainly on the lecture's association between violence and Islam, but the most important and disputable aspect of it was Benedict's reflection on what it means to be European. In his speech at Regensburg, the Pope attempted to set out a European identity that is Christian by faith and Greek by philosophical reason. But Benedict's speech implicitly suggested that he believes that Islam has no such relationship with reason--and thus is excluded from being European. Several years ago, the Pope, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, set forth his opposition to the integration of Turkey into Europe in similar terms. Muslim Turkey has never been, and never will be, able to claim an authentically European culture, he contended. It is another thing; it is the Other.

As I have written before, this profoundly European Pope is inviting the people of his continent to become aware of the central, inescapable character of Christianity within their identity, or risk losing it. That may be a legitimate goal, but Benedict's narrow definition of European identity is deeply troubling and potentially dangerous. This is what Muslims must respond to: the tendency of Westerners to ignore the critical role that Muslims played in the development of Western thought. Those who "forget" the decisive contributions of rationalist Muslim thinkers like al-Farabi (10th century), Avicenna (11th century), Averroes (12th century), al-Ghazali (12th century), Ash-Shatibi (13th century) and Ibn Khaldun (14th century) are reconstructing a Europe that is not only an illusion but also self-deceptive about its past.

What the West needs most today is not so much a dialogue with other civilizations but an honest dialogue with itself--one that acknowledges those traditions within Western civilization that are almost never recognized. Europe, in particular, must learn to reconcile itself with the diversity of its past in order to master the coming pluralism of its future.

The Pope's visit to Turkey presents an opportunity to put forward the true terms of the debate over the relationship between Islam and the West. First, it is necessary to stop presenting this visit as if it were a trip to a country whose religion and culture are alien to Europe. Selective about its past, Europe is becoming blind to its present. The European continent has been home to a sizable population of Muslims for centuries. While visiting Turkey, the Pope must acknowledge that he is encountering not a potential threat but a mirror. Islam is already a European religion.

Rather than focus on differences, the true dialogue between the Pope and Islam, and between secularized societies and Islamic ones, should emphasize our common, universal values: mutual respect of human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law and democracy. Though most of the media attention is directed at a marginal minority of radicals, millions of European Muslims are quietly proving every day that they can live perfectly well in secular societies and share a strong ethical pedestal with Jews, Christians and atheist humanists.

Let us hope that the Pope will be able to transform his former perception of the threat of "the Other," of Islam, into a more open approach--by strongly highlighting the ethical teachings the religions have in common and the ways they can contribute together to the future of a pluralistic Europe. Benedict XVI should be free to express his opinions without risk of impassioned denunciation. But the least one can expect from the Pope--especially in this difficult era of fear and suspicion--is that he help bridge the divide and create new spaces of confidence and trust.

• Tariq Ramadan, a research fellow at Oxford, is the author of several books on Islam, including To Be a European Muslim

Pope Flies to Istanbul, Landing in a Political Cloud

ROME, Nov. 27 — Pope Benedict XVI originally wanted to visit Turkey a year ago, for one quiet night, and Islam had nothing to do with it.

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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, right, met with Pope Benedict XVI upon the pope’s arrival at the airport in Ankara today.

Tolga Adanali/AFP — Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey at their meeting today. Mr. Erdogan said after the meeting that Benedict told him he supported Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

It was meant as a trip to help heal the 1,000-year rift with the world’s 220 million Orthodox Christians. The pope would celebrate the Feast of St. Andrew on Nov. 30 with Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Church, who lives in Istanbul, then return to Rome.

But for various reasons having to do with its complex relationship with Orthodox Christianity, the Turkish government protested. No doubt the nation’s leaders wish they had approved a visit then. Now, after the pope’s speech two months ago that many interpreted as suggesting that Islam was prone to violence, the trip that starts Tuesday has become far more complicated.

Turkey, facing continuing protests and lingering anger over the pope’s words, has to ensure his safety during the four-day visit and maintain the image of a secular and moderate Muslim nation that wants to join the European Union.

And Benedict now has two jobs. The trip is still aimed primarily at reaching out to the Orthodox. But after his apologies for the reaction to the speech mentioning Islam, expectations are high for him also to reach out to Muslims — if with measured words unlikely to express the full range of his complex concerns about Islam and the possibilities of meaningful dialogue with Christians.

“He is aware that he offended Muslims by his remarks in Regensburg,” said the Rev. Keith F. Pecklers, a Jesuit priest and professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University here, referring to the city in Germany where the pope delivered the speech in September. “So I am sure he will be very careful to bring a message of hope and reconciliation.”

Sergio Romano, a former Italian ambassador to NATO, put it succinctly in a column on Monday in the influential daily newspaper Corriere della Sera: “The theological pope is turning into a diplomatic pope.”

It is impossible to know exactly what Benedict plans to say about Islam: His speeches, most often written by Benedict himself, are closely guarded until just before they are delivered.

But there are at least two relevant events on his schedule. On Tuesday, he will meet with Turkey’s chief Muslim religious figure, Ali Bardakoglu, who had been one of the most outspoken critics of the pope’s speech. On Thursday, in an event announced over the weekend, he will visit the splendid Blue Mosque, built deliberately facing the Hagia Sophia, the magnificent sixth-century church that symbolized Byzantine Christianity, to show that Islam could compete with the best that Christianity could offer.

In this visit, Benedict will become the second pope known to have visited a mosque, after his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. But John Paul had a far different approach to Islam: He tended to emphasize the similarities of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and was fond of public displays of unity, like interreligious prayer services.

Benedict is considered to be skeptical of stagecraft, with deep concerns about whether true dialogue is possible with a faith as decentralized as Islam. He has also worried, on several occasions, about violence committed in the name of religion, suggesting Islam.

Benedict has, however, expressed admiration for the role of faith in the Muslim world; conversely, he has been strongly critical of a West so secular that it sometimes shuts God out of public life completely. Several church experts suggested that this may be one area of common ground between the pope and his hosts.

“He stresses very much that Western civilization and the international community are based too much on a materialistic mentality,” said the Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, head of Asia News, a Catholic news service that covers the East. “And this is why there must be a kind of reconciliation and cooperation between religions in order to correct this prominence of materialism in society.”

In mapping relations with Islam, Benedict has insisted on “reciprocity,” that Christian minorities in Muslim countries should enjoy the same freedom of religion as Muslims do, say, in Europe. But on this trip, any mention too specific about religious freedom holds the danger of offending Turkey.

Turkey’s Orthodox Christians, although only a few thousand in number, complain of laws and bureaucratic obstacles that make life difficult for their clergy and institutions, and many Orthodox would like Benedict to offer at least indirect support for changes that, they say, would allow the church to operate more freely.

Part of the problem between the state and the Christian community, Turkish experts say, is a fear among many Turks that Bartholomew seeks to establish a Vatican-like Christian mini-state in the heart of Istanbul, an assertion he denies.

Sensitivities are high enough that part of the reason Turkey denied the trip last year was that the invitation came from Bartholomew, a religious leader. Only a head of state, officials argued, can invite another head of state, like the pope, on a visit.

Some experts say Benedict can go far in pleasing Turks merely by being friendly, and he seems to want to do that. On Sunday, he sent his “cordial greetings to the dear Turkish people.”

Another way Benedict can win people over, said Dogu Ergil, a political science professor at Ankara University, would be for him to show some sign that he had changed his mind on an issue that has not endeared him to Turks: Before Benedict was elected pope, he expressed his opposition to Turkey’s membership to the European Union, calling Turkey “in permanent contrast to Europe.” On Sunday, however, the top papal spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican had no objections.

“Turks have short memories,” Professor Ergil said, hoping the pope will change his stance. “They can easily forget.”

Europe should not turn its back on Turkey, Vatican envoy says

Source : EU Observer, 27-11-2006
www.turquieeuropeenne.org/article1623.html 

As thousands of Muslims protest against this week’s visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Turkey following his comments on Islam and Ankara’s EU bid, the Vatican’s chief spokesman in Istanbul tells EUobserver the Muslim country belongs in Europe and opposition towards it is based on fear of the unknown.

Over 25,000 people gathered in Istanbul on Sunday (26 November) in a demonstration against the visit by the leader of the Catholic Church leader starting in Ankara on Tuesday, shouting "Don’t come, Pope!" - a statement also written on posters displayed throughout the city.

The country’s Muslims were angered by a speech by the Pope in September in which he suggested a link between violence and Islam. His apology afterwards and Sunday’s message of "esteem and sincere friendship" to the "beloved Turkish people" did little to quell the anger.

But Mons Georges Marovitch, the spokesman for the Vatican as well as for the tiny Catholic community in Turkey, estimated to number around 33,000 or 0.5 percent of the population, hopes that the Pope’s visit will serve to heal the rifts.

"His previous statements were misunderstood and I’m sure that he will now find words of conciliation for those that have been hurt so that the dialogue between the two biggest religions is resumed as the world’s peace depends on it," said Mons Marovitch.

On Ankara’s EU membership - openly contended by cardinal Ratzinger before he became pope - Mons Marovitch said: "At the moment, any of us can and must admit that Turkey is not prepared to join the EU but to say a definite no would be a big mistake from Europe."

He added that the inter-cultural and inter-religious experience dating back to the Ottoman empire, as well as the core moral values of Islam being so close to Christianity mean that the country would be "a huge enrichment for Europe."

"In Istanbul, in the time when in Europe you couldn’t imagine that a mosque or synagogue would be constructed, the Turks built a mosque, a church and a synagogue almost next to each other where people of all these religions could pray."

Mons Marovitch acknowledges that over time the freedoms of religious minorities have deteriorated, an issue also highlighted by the European Commission in a recent report on Turkey’s progress towards membership of the EU.

But he says the EU membership process has triggered a series of positive changes that could significantly change the life of those minorities.

"We can recognize the fear of Turkey in Europe. But this fear is there because Europeans don’t know Turkey well," Mons Marovitch points out, stressing that both concerns over an influx of economic immigrants and fear of Islam as a different religion can be challenged.

"If Europe helped Turkey’s economy a bit to get on the same level as other European countries, I’m sure that no Turk would want to leave his country and go to Europe as Turkey is three times as big as Italy and twice as big as France and has many riches to give to its people."

"On the other hand, Islam as the different religion could also be enriching as many Europeans have lost some of their moral values and supported laws which are against the basic ideas of both of these monotheistic religions and which Turks as Muslims would never approve."

Mons Marovitch noted that many in Turkey actually oppose EU membership saying that instead of being "a last and looked-down-on van in the back" the country should become a "locomotive in a train consisting of Islamic countries."

"But if this happened, it would be a historic loss for Europe as it would mean that we would see an emergence of two camps that could easily end up standing in confrontation against each other."

"So it’s better if Turkey became a bridge for dialogue and a bridge between these two diverse civilisations," he added.

EU Christian heritage

Mr Marovitch is aware that although he is referred to as the Vatican’s representative in Istanbul, his views are not necessarily shared either in the Vatican or elsewhere Europe.

But he argues that they are well-known and are also shared in the Catholic community in Turkey, with other Christian denominations also expressing similar opinions.

"Of course I am not a politician," he says but he does not refrain from commenting on political issues such as the French law on denial of Armenian genocide in 1915, saying those French deputies who voted in favour "didn’t know the problem."

"That bill is a result of a political discourse and I hope it will not pass through as it would be a big mistake. Turks themselves acknowledge that there was a massacre of Armenians but it was not genocide. In any case, we should let the historians deal with this not politicians."

Unlike some in Europe, he also disagrees that a future EU constitution needs to refer exclusively to the Christian religion and its values.

"The reference to such values is not as crucial as the values themselves and so we should be careful about the words that we are using but instead highlight the moral values that we have - and these we share with the Muslim community. And so for me, it would be better not to use such words," he said.

Awaiting Pope, Turkey Is Unsure About Ties to West

Fatih Saribas/Reuters

Turks protested the pope's visit on Monday in Istanbul.

They see that in the opposition to Turkey’s admission voiced by some European countries, including Germany, Austria and France. Indeed, in 2002, , former President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of France said Turkey’s admission to the European Union would mean ”the end of Europe,” and now the French presidential hopeful Nicholas Sarkozy has made his opposition a campaign issue. Even the pope, when he was still a cardinal in Germany, said publicly that he did not think Turkey fit into Europe because it was Muslim. That talk has begun to grate on Turks.

“It hurts me that the E.U. expects Turkey to be something it’s not,” said Nilgun Yun, a stylish 26-year-old chewing a chocolate muffin in a downtown Istanbul cafe on Sunday.

Her position, shared by many of her friends, was simple: “Accept me as I am. We are Muslim, and we will remain Muslim. That’s not going to change.”

Mr. Oyman, the Turkish opposition politician, said that talk about Turkey was tougher than ever. “You cannot believe how they accuse Turkey on Cyprus and other issues,” he said in a telephone interview from Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of European parliamentarians. “Our European friends are playing a very shortsighted game.”

The shift has begun affect trade. While Europe is still Turkey’s largest trading partner, business with other neighbors, including Syria, Iraq and Iran, has picked up substantially in recent years, said Omer Bolat, the head of one of the country’s largest business associations, whose members are mostly pro-Islamic. He put the growth at about 30 percent from just 3 percent in 2000.

“It is risky for a country with respect to foreign policy to have dependence on one partner and market,” he said in English, sitting in a sleek conference room when overlooking a bustling trade fair showcasing Turkish goods. “Now Turkey is opening its muscles, its horizons.”

The policies of the Bush administration have deeply worried Muslims, he said, before rushing off to speak to the Pakistani ambassador, who had arrived to the trade fair.

“The United States used to be paradigm of freedom and rights,” he said. “But since the Republican period, the U.S. policies have been so detrimental in Muslim eyes.”

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in just four years, has managed to get inflation down to historic lows and growth rates to all-time highs. The growing prosperity has eased integration of religious Turks into the country’s self-consciously society, which is still suspicious of advocates of Islam, as well as of Mr. Erdogan and his pro-Islamic government.

“This group of people that was more religious has relaxed,” Ms. Toprak said. “They are now visible. They go to restaurants they would never have gone; they go to posh shopping malls.”

“It was a struggle to get a piece of the pie,” she said. “Now they have one.”

Even so, the increased religiosity, or at least identification with religion, could eventually present a serious problem for Turkey. There are already rumblings. A killing of a judge whose court had ruled on a headscarf case aroused suspicions among Turkey’s securlarists. Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, head of the Turkish Army, has referred to a rising threat of fundamentalism on at least four occasions since he came to office in late August.

Mr. Erdogan’s closely watched government has attempted to limit liquor consumption in public places, but later backed down. It also tried to make adultery a crime, but later relented.

Some Turkish officials play down the possibility of real damage to secularism, but say that European suspicion does Turkey no good.

The delay with Europe, for instance, “fans up the disappointment, the disillusionment,” said Namik Tan, the spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry. “People say, why are they doing this?”

That is why public officials, including Mr. Erdogan, have shrunk from the visit of the pope, who symbolizes, in the eyes of Turks, a disdain for Islam and the unfair exclusivity of the Western club. A cartoon in a Turkish newspaper last weekend showed two public officials belly-laughing at the bad luck of those Turkish officials obliged to meet him. (The senior official appointed to be his formal guide has the portfolio of youth and sport.) But the pope is coming, and the meetings are happening. Despite growing pains, a neglected Kurdish minority in the south, a thin skin for any reference to the Armenian genocide, and failure to scrap a law that makes insulting Turkishness a crime, Turkey stands out as lively democracy in a larger Middle East riddled with restrictions, and its acceptance by the West is a test case for everyone, officials said.

Muslim countries, Mr. Tan points out, are watching. “Turkey is a beacon for those countries,” he said. “Don’t forget, if we fail, then the whole dream will fail.”

Ecumenical route in the tracks of crusades

As the trip of the Pope of Rome to Turkey, planned almost a year ago, is approaching, there is a growing tension in certain religious and public circles dripping down gradually to the faithful. The succession of events on the eve of the trip has heated the universal expectations to the highest possible degree. With the collective Islamic emotional explosion caused by Benedict XVI’s speech at Regensburg University still resounding, thousands of angry Istanbul people carrying anti-papal slogans, the promises of Turkish nationalists to strangle the pope ‘with their own hands’ together with the Holy See’s chief ‘ecumenical’ adviser Cardinal Walter Kasper, and finally the recent rumors that the papal delegation are to be protected by the Mossad bodyguards – all this seems to lay out a plot for a fashionable religious-political suspense story. Some appropriate bestsellers about an inevitable attempt on the pope’s life in Istanbul with the necessary involvement of local special services and masons have already been offered to the public by apt publishers in Ankara.

The relevance of such an interreligious detective story may seem more than obvious at a time when it is believed to be a good form and a good knowledge of the subject to consider all the developments in this area through the prism of dialogue of civilizations and general pacifist goals of world religions. The principled coldness of the Turkish authorities and the indignation of the masses deliberately heated up by the Islamic Grey Wolves as reaction to the papal visit are essentially signs showing that in reality the Islamic-Christian relations will never be serenely simple and capable of being reduced to joint diplomatic declarations. Their conflict-prone nature however lies elsewhere. The charges of insults to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad brought against the pope, which are called to stir up mass protests, actually conceal the real anxiety that the Turkish elite feel towards the pontiff’s visit to Istanbul. Moreover, the reason for this anxiety is the same as that which compels Orthodox Churches, considering all the troubles of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, to follow closely the upcoming meeting between Benedict XVI and the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Indeed, the resolute statements of Turkey’s president for religious affairs Ali Bardakoglu about his intention to remind the pope that it is inadmissible to insult the prophet have made almost unnoticed the recent statements made by the president of the Pontific Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Poupard. He says it is not at all consolidation of relations between religions that has been put in the center of the visit by the head of the Catholic Church to the Islamic state but rather ecumenical dialogue and reflection on the ways of developing Christian unity. Benedict XVI is coming to what was Constantinople first of all as head of the Roman See whose ecumenical ecclesial authority has determined the policy of the popes for centuries. The forthcoming meeting of the successor at St. Peter’s throne with the Patriarch of Constantinople to take place on St. Andrew’s Day is utterly symbolic. Moreover, this symbolism, which is often to be followed in church policy by practical action, appears to be a solid irritant for the Turkish authorities who are reluctant to hear even a hint of Bartholomew’s claim to the status of ‘Ecumenical’ Patriarch of the Orthodox world.

The Islamic vector of the pontificate of John Paul II’s conservative successor has not been specified yet. Indeed, to regard a quotation from a medieval manuscript given by a former theological professor with proper reservations as the Vatican’s declaration of ‘cold war’ on Islam is at least a hasty proposal. At the same time, it is anybody’s guess whether the pontificate of Benedict XVI, who ignored the demands to apologize ‘for Regensburg’, will be marked with as significant and almost revolutionary statements as Nostra Aetate made by Rome II with regard to non-Christian religions at Vatican II.

Meanwhile, the ecumenical vector of Benedict XVI’s policy seems to have grown ever more consistent after the first statement he made immediately after his election to the See of Rome, pledging to commit himself to the visible unity of Christian Churches. The Eastern Christian component of ecumenism appears to be a priority for the pope, who admitted a month ago a desire to bring nearer the moment of communion with the Orthodox Greeks. However, the historically establish multi-polar nature of the Orthodox world will demand that the Holy See elaborate as multi-component and multifaceted policy of relations with National Orthodox Churches. The meeting of the Orthodox-Catholic Theological Commission in September in Belgrade has reaffirmed that it is inadmissible to use uniform methods in the dialogue between the Roman Catholic West and the polycentric Orthodox East and that it is necessary to use individual reciprocal ways in every particular case. The Istanbul meeting between Benedict XVI and one of the Orthodox patriarchs, even if more ready than others to make a compromise on the issue of the papal primacy, will still remain a meeting between the leader of the Catholic world and the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. And the opinion of the religious leader of a comparatively small Greek flock to be expressed in a future joint declaration made together with the Pope of Rome will never become, however strong the wish, a testimony to an ‘ecumenical breakthrough’ in the awareness of the millions-strong Orthodox world.
Elena ZHOSUL, www.interfax-religion.com 

27 November 2006 [14:06] - Today.Az

Head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey: 
"I do not think Pope's visit will solve all problems"

"I appreciate Pope's visit to Turkey. This is positive step in developing and improving discussions and dialogues between the two different nations," Head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs Ali Bardakoglu.

"I wish these steps to be continuous when the world needs peace not war.
The Pope's speech in Germany wasn't a critique. It turned against fundamentally sacred elements of Islam in a condemning manner. In this sense, it was flawed. It shouldn' have been that way, as the pope himself later came to understand. Whenever we hear such accuses we show our reaction and say that they are wrong. But at the same time, whenever the person we criticize visits us we will be hospitable. Because, Turkish are hospitable nation. Highly estimating this visit, I do not think that it will solve all problems."

Ali Bardakoglu considers normal that Turkey expressed the strictest reaction both to caricature crisis and Pope's speech.

"We're always open to criticism. The aim of Turkey is to be hospitable, in spite of not accepting the guests' thoughts, to treat him politely," he said.

He also highly estimated Pope Iohann Pavel's peaceful messages during his visit to Azerbaijan, APA reports.

"If only we could realize what we say. Koran says Why do you say what you can not realize. I give my regards to my friends in Azerbaijan," he said.
www.today.az/news/society/33155.html 

Pope's Visit Overshadowed by Confrontation With Islam

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey to heal a rift with the eastern Orthodox Church, has been overshadowed by Muslim anger over remarks about Islam. Muslim Turks seek dialogue, but will be monitoring his every word.

Diana Fong  /www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2250388,00.html  27.11.06

The article notes that Pope Benedict has undergone a small operation in preparation for an eventual bypass operation, and that the bronchitis suffered by the Pope since his childhood has put undue pressure on the Pope's heart. Says the article: "No matter how much the Pope's personal doctor, Bumkhard Phaff, may deny it, the Pope has elevated blood pressure, and is only able to stay standing due to his medicines." The Gente article also placed part of the blame for the controversy surrounding the Pope's words on current Vatican spokesman Priest Franscesco Lombardini, noting "If former press spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls, who worked for 24 years at that position, were still on the job, this crisis would not have grown to these dimensions."
www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/5510527.asp?gid=74  Nov.29 2006

ROME - Pope Benedict XVI said his forthcoming visit to Turkey was a sign of the friendship he held for the Turkish people. The Pope, who is due to arrive in Ankara Tuesday afternoon, said that he was looking forward to his visit and the opportunity to meet with senior Muslim, Catholic and Greek Orthodox clerics.

“As you all know I am leaving for Turkey on Tuesday,” the Pontiff said in his weekly Angelus prayer in Rome on Sunday. “Starting right now, I want to send a cordial greeting to the dear Turkish people, rich in history and culture. To these people and their representatives I express feelings of esteem and sincere friendship.”

Security will be tight throughout the Papal trip, with more than 3000 police, along with paramilitary units, being deployed in Ankara for the Pope’s visit, his first to a Muslim country since becoming Pontiff.

While many Turks were upset by the Pontiff’s comments in September seen as being critical of Islam, the Turkish government has accepted the Vatican’s explanation that the Pope was speaking out against all religious-based violence and not singling out the Muslim faith.

On Sunday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the Pontiff’s visit was important for helping to foster relations between faiths and help overcome misunderstandings.

 In its Monday session, the Turkish cabinet discussed possible repercussions of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey.

Government spokesman Cemil Cicek commented on the pope’s visit after the session ended.

Cicek stressed that worldwide perceptions of Turkey emanated from its adherence to tolerance, hospitality and its institutionalized statehood.

“I hope this visit will be a good opportunity to demonstrate those qualities to the whole world once again.”

Cicek said that reactions and protests were not intended to criticize the pope for simply being the pope, but rather his remarks about Islam.

“Of course, there is a certain fury among a faction of the Turkish public against the pope visiting the country. Turkish officials said at the time that the pope’s remarks [about Islam] were demeaning. The cabinet also participated in issuing the necessary statements to appease public reaction.”

The pope came as a guest of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, said Cicek, and underlined that the pope had intended his visit to be spiritual.

Asked to comment on a possible message from the Turkish premier to the pope, Cicek said, “What matters is not what we say; but what our visitors say to us. I hope this visit will bring with it an opportunity to bridge the gap between Christianity and Islam.”

Protestors Ask Pope to Apologize Before his Visit

zaman.com

 On Sunday, at least 20,000 demonstrators protested the Pope’s visit to Turkey scheduled to begin Nov. 28.

The protest meeting which was organized by the religious Saadet political party ended without any incidents.

The crowd, chanting slogans and carrying banners, took to Caglayan Square in central Istanbul to protest the visit.

The protestors, referring to the Pope’s remarks against Islam, asked him to “apologize” for his remarks linking violence and Islam.

The Saadet party leader gave a speech during the protest meeting and said: “We are a hospitable nation. We are ready to welcome the Pope if he apologizes for his remarks.”

There were some foreign journalists among the crowd. In particular, Italian media and Arab TV channels showed a huge interest in the protest meeting.

The protest meeting ended with a teleconference speech by former Saadet Party leader Necmettin Erbakan.

Some protestors carried banners that read, “Ignorant and sneaky pope, don’t come.”

Some banners were written in English. “Jesus is not the son of God, he is a Prophet of Islam,” and “We as Muslims believe Jesus came before Mohammed and accept Jesus as our Prophet."

The Pope is scheduled to arrive in the Turkish capital Ankara on Tuesday at the invitation of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.

Pope Benedict has also decided to visit the Sultanahmet Mosque, better known as the Blue Mosque.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi confirmed this on Sunday.

While visiting his native Germany in September, Pope Benedict commented on Islam and its concept of "jihad" or holy war, citing a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said the Prophet Mohammed had brought the world nothing but "evil and inhuman" things.

Following protests and demonstrations attended by thousands of people, the Pope later made a statement to try and calm the anger sparked in Muslim countries.

The pontiff said that he was "deeply sorry" for his remarks that had offended Muslims; however, he stopped short of making an unequivocal apology, defending instead that the extract he used in his speech did not reflect his personal opinion.

POPE IN TURKEY: INTERVIEW - 
VISIT IS AN APOLOGY FOR CONTROVERSIAL ISLAM SPEECH