The Times of London reports that the Vatican is concerned enough about security for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey, that it has decided to substitute the traditional "Popemobile" for an armor-plated car. Several other vehicles will be used as decoys. The pope will also wear a bullet-proof vest in some situations. Although the primary reason for the trip is to hold meetings about further links between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, the Pope "in a conciliatory gesture to Muslims" will also visit the Blue Mosque, or Sultanahmet, in Istanbul.
In a reciprocal gesture [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan] indicated that he would "find time" after all to meet the Pope tomorrow at Ankara airport. He insisted that his absence during the Pope's trip because of a NATO summit in Riga was not a "snub". The Pope was "welcome" in Turkey, "but whoever comes here must show respect for the Prophet Muhammad."
The exchanges reflect last-minute efforts on both sides to calm the tensions inflamed by the Pope's [University of] Regensburg speech in September, which referred to Islam as "evil" and "violent."
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A demonstration organized by Turkish Islamists to protest the pontiff's visit drew more than 25,000 people to Istanbul Sunday. Voice of America reports that protestors said the pope is not welcome in the largely secular nation until he apologizes for the quote he used about the prophet Mohammed in the lecture at Regensburg in Germany.
Security was tight for the demonstration, organized by the pro-Islamic party called Saadat, or Felicity. A helicopter hovered overhead as 4,000 police, backed by armored vehicles, stood by.
A spokesman for the party, Mustafa Kaya, said Turkey is a hospitable nation, but what the pope did, is unacceptable and he must formally apologize.
Not everyone in Turkey, however, agreed with the protestors in Istanbul. During a Sunday television interview on the Turkish channel TGRT, Mr. Erdogan referred to Islamists who carried out violent protests last week as "marginal people." Writing in the Turkish Daily News, commentator Yusuf Kanli agreed.
We would not, of course, say the prime minister was correct in the same sense that a broken watch would be correct twice a day, but for a change we should underline that we fully share the sentiment of what the prime minister said. These people staging violent demonstrations against the pope's visit cannot have a sound reason for their actions and must have no idea about the interests of this country, though they claim to be nationalists and devoted Muslims.
The Boston Globe reports that the pope's visit also serves to highlight the divisions within Turkey itself.
Benedict, 79, is seen as a lightning rod for Turkey's internal disputes. By highlighting questions about the status of Turkey's tiny but historically important Christian minority, his visit has sharpened those dividing lines – between religious Muslims who want to end restrictions on public observance and secular Muslims who fear imposition of a religious way of life, as well as between Turks who want to tie their fate to Europe's and those who want to distance themselves from the West.
In a lengthy analysis for the German magazine Der Spiegel, reporter Alexander Smoltczyk writes that the crisis between the Catholic Church and Islam created by the pope's comments is largely the Vatican's fault, and "says a great deal about conditions in the Roman curia, and about the inability of the world's most successful institutions to deal effectively with the present."
For instance, the previous pontiff, John Paul II, made sure that all of his speeches and talks were read over by at least two key aides before they were delivered, in order to avoid any accidentally controversial remarks. But Benedict XVI had dispensed with this practice before the Regensburg lecture. He "also happens to be someone who enjoys provocation and has an aversion to pussyfooting and consensus."
Even the translators noticed the passage about Muhammad. "It must have been obvious to even the most dim-witted members of the curia that this sort of language has to approved by diplomats." But the translators kept their surprise and reservations to themselves.
Another of the few members of the church hierarchy to see the draft speech was too busy to read the text in-depth. "We received an entire packet containing the speeches and prayers for the trip. I don't believe that each of us read each text in its entirety. I, for one, wasn't able to do so until Tuesday."
And because even the Vatican is not immune to conspiracy theories, an official who has worked in the curia under four popes says: "There are a few people who, under John Paul II, carved out important niches for themselves in the church's dialogue with Muslims, and who are now out of a job. It is sad to have to say this, but they allowed him to walk into a trap."
Mr. Smoltczyk argues that the Vatican has to realize that modern media will not cover a long university lecture in depth, but will only look for the "sound bite" for the news. In this case, the sound bite was the ancient quote about Mohammed. If there is any good in this moment, he says, it is that Islamic scholars have poured over the Pope's entire lecture, and have found common ground for dialogue in some places.
Finally, in a related issue, talks between Turkey and the European Union over Cyprus have broken down. The BBC reports that "failure to break the impasse could lead to the collapse of Turkey's EU membership bid." The EU had given Turkey until Dec. 6 to open its ports to traffic from Cyprus, whose government Turkey refuses to recognize.
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Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan.
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