Focus on Blue Mosque stop
The Turkish government showed Europe hospitable feelings toward a religious leader who had expressed a negative view of Islam. They mobilized 20,000 police officers in an unprecedented operation that paralyzed the cities the pope visited. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also showed Muslims in Turkey and around the world that he could get the pope to make what amounted to an apology. The Turkish premier met with the leader of the Catholic Church for a few minutes at Ankara airport where, Erdogan later said, Pope Benedict XVI offered his support for Turkey’s European prospects. More importantly, Ankara managed to distract international attention from the prime purpose of the papal visit. The visit to Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios and the encounter between the two religious leaders received far less coverage than the pope’s visit to the Blue Mosque. Recent remarks by Benedict, the reactions of Turkish nationalists and the tough stance of the Turkish government put the emphasis on the dialogue between Christianity and Islam in an attempt to take the spotlight off the ecumenical character of the Patriarchate.
