POPE ON TENSE TREK TO TURKEY
Matt McAllester

Newsday, NY
Nov 27 2006

ISTANBUL, TURKEY – Stretched down the outside of the Saadet Party
headquarters in Istanbul last week was a banner with a slogan that
made clear the views of the men running things inside: "Ignorant and
sly Pope, don’t come."

Inside, the Islamist party’s leader in Istanbul, Osman Yumakogullari,
began a long monologue that started with the Sept. 11 attacks, touched
on his views of President George W. Bush, the bombings in Madrid and
London, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then he got to his point.

"As if these were not enough," he said, "then the pope went and
made a statement at the German university in Regensburg. … It was
pointless at a time of wars to turn all of the world’s one billion
Muslims against him."

Benedict XVI’s first visit to a Muslim country as pope could barely
be happening under less comfortable circumstances. It comes less than
three months after he enraged much of the Islamic world by making
remarks about Islam at Regensburg, worsening an impression that he
was a pontiff with a particular suspicion of Islam and a documented
hostility toward Turkey joining the predominantly Christian club of
the European Union.

In spite of official protestations that the pope is still welcome
in this nation of 70 million Muslims, it seemed last week as though
few dignitaries were relishing the idea of being photographed with
the pontiff.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan initially said he would
not be in Turkey to greet the pope – he’s due at a NATO meeting in
Latvia – but during the weekend his office indicated he might find
time to meet Benedict at Istanbul airport for an hour. The Armenian
Orthodox patriarch told Newsday he did not plan to discuss anything
important with the pope. And a well-placed source in Turkish political
circles said Turkey’s chief rabbi was also unenthusiastic about being
seen or photographed with Benedict.

"Hopefully, this [visit] will give him a chance to renew his feelings
about the religion that is practiced by the majority of the inhabitants
of this land," Egeman Bagis, Erdogan’s foreign policy adviser,
told Newsday.

Other Turks were less diplomatic about the pope’s visit.

"No good will come of it," said Gokcehan Uzun, 28, a worker in a shop
that sells chicken in the city of Trabzon on the Dead Sea. "After
his speech, we don’t expect much. If he says that kind of thing he
can’t come to a Muslim country and expect anything. If he really
appreciated Muslims he wouldn’t say such things."

Security will be extraordinarily high for the visit. Mindful that it
was a Turk who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II 25 years ago,
the Turkish security services are deploying thousands of police,
bomb disposal experts, snipers, commandos and secret service agents
to make sure nothing happens to Benedict while he is here.

They’ve already had a scare: On Nov. 2, a young Turkish man fired
shots outside the Italian consulate in Istanbul. As he was led away
by police, he shouted: "God willing, this will be a spark, a starter
for Muslims. God willing, he will not come. If he comes, he will see
what will happen to him."

Turkey’s image at stake

In spite of the tensions between the Vatican and Turkey, the government
is keen that the trip goes as smoothly as possible. If Europeans this
week see a Turkey that greets the leader of the Catholic Church with
protests and cold shoulders, then their reluctance to let Turkey ever
join the European Union is likely to grow. The Turkish government is
working hard to pave the way for Turkey’s eventual accession to the EU.

And so by Saturday the government had forced the Saadet Party to
take down the huge banner calling the pope "ignorant and sly" and
to abandon the thousands of other banners with the same slogan the
party had prepared for an anti-pope demonstration yesterday.

That didn’t stop more than 25,000 protesters from making their
feelings clear yesterday afternoon when they gathered in an Istanbul
square. One banner featured an image of a pig with a photograph of
Benedict’s face superimposed on the pig’s head. Benedict had blood
dripping from his mouth.

"Go Home Papa!" read the banner.

Despite the Vatican’s stated opposition to the Iraq war, it was clear
from the crowd that many people in Turkey and the Islamic world have
come to see the pope as part of what they regard as a broad Western
conspiracy to subjugate Muslims in a modern-day crusade.

Some people wore the green headbands of the radical Palestinian
group, Hamas. Some had photographs of dead Palestinian babies taped to
their backs. Other banners and literature mentioned the wars in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Lebanon.

"God Damn Israel," read a woman’s black headband.

"We are here because the pope is trying to poison the people of the
world with feelings of revenge and hatred," said Mehmet Yanik, 53,
who made an 11-hour bus journey from Denizlil to attend the Istanbul
rally yesterday.