Financial Times, UK
Dec 1 2006

Pope’s Turkey visit an unexpected success
By Vincent Boland in Ankara

Published: December 1 2006 17:08 | Last updated: December 1 2006
17:08

It was amid the delicate and rather spartan splendour of the
400-year-old Blue Mosque that Pope Benedict XVI made the most
dramatic gesture of his visit to Turkey. The leader of the Roman
Catholic Church, flanked by the white-robed Grand Mufti of Istanbul,
turned towards Mecca and prayed.

By common consent among much of the Turkish media and the public, it
was the moment the Pope overcame at least some of the suspicion with
which he is regarded in Turkey. `Peace in Istanbul’ was the headline
in Milliyet. The papers carried front-page photographs of the two men
at prayer, and doves featured prominently in the gifts they
exchanged.

As the Pope returned to Rome on Friday after his first visit to a
Muslim country, the Vatican may be troubled that the image of him
praying at the mosque will completely overshadow the original aim of
the four-day trip – a meeting with Bartholomew, the Ecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople and leader of the world’s Greek Orthodox
Church, to forge Christian unity.

For Turkey, however, the trip can be seen as a political triumph,
even if the ever-patient residents of Istanbul were beginning to vent
their rage at the excessively intrusive and heavy-handed security
presence. This caused chaos throughout the Pope’s time in the city;
it also illustrated the overblown expectations surrounding his
presence on Turkish soil – that it could spark violent protests and
perhaps even an attempt on the Pope’s life.

Ever since his September speech, however, when he appeared to link
Islam and violence, this trip’s political agenda rapidly overtook its
religious one.

The two aspects of his time in Turkey considered the most important
in helping the Pope to put his reputation for Islamophobia behind him
– his meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, and
the visit to the Blue Mosque – were last-minute additions to a
crowded schedule, made at the insistence of his hosts.

`These were the unavoidable and inevitable steps the Pope had to
climb so that he could get his meeting with the Patriarch,’ said
Tayfun Atay, an expert on religion and society at Ankara University.
`The original aim was not to ease Christian/Muslim tensions, but that
is where the trip may have been most successful.’

The trip impressed the Pope. As he was leaving he told Muammer Guler,
the governor of Istanbul, that he was leaving a part of his heart in
the city, according to local news reports. And if it cured him of his
perceived Islamophobia, the intriguing question is whether it also
cured the Turks of their own religious phobias.

These phobias are largely held by nationalists. But they have given
rise to a wider suspicion of religious minorities. Though there are
only about 100,000 Christians in the country today, human rights
groups have accused the secular state of discriminating against them
and of appropriating church properties without compensation. The Pope
made a pointed reference to religious rights during his trip, but it
seems to have been largely ignored in the hoopla surrounding the
visit to the mosque.

It is likely that religious freedom will become an issue in Turkey’s
accession to the European Union, if that ever happens. Mustafa
Soykut, a historian of religion at Middle East Technical University,
says the origins of the state’s hostility to religious minorities
dates to the role of the Greek Orthodox Church in fomenting Greek
separatism during the Ottoman era.

`The state perceives a threat because the church is seen as a sort of
Greek fifth column,’ he says, adding: `It’s in Turkey’s best
interests to give religious minorities their rights, especially the
Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches. These people are Turkish
citizens, after all.’