Pope Benedict XVI begins his first visit to a Muslim country, a four-day trip to Turkey where his controversial remarks in September linking Islam and violence remain fresh in memories. His welcome will be slightly less chilly than expected, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a conservative with islamist roots, agreeing to a brief airport meeting shortly after the pope arrives and just before Erdogan flies off to a NATO summit in Riga.
The Vatican warmly welcomed the move, saying it was a "much appreciated... gesture of attention."
The government spokesman, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, said Monday evening that he hoped the pontiff's visit would constitute a "turning point" in relations between Islam and Christianity.
The first leg of the pope's trip in the Turkish capital will be purely political.
He will make the compulsory visit to the hilltop mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern republic, for a wreath-laying ceremony before going to the Presidential Palace for an official welcome and a tete-a-tete with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
He then visits Ali Bardakoglu, the director of religious affairs, who had harsh words for the pope after his September 12 remarks in Regensburg, Germany, equating Islam with violence.
Bardakoglu had then accused Benedict XVI of harboring "hatred in his heart" for Muslims and said in an interview Tuesday that the visit, although "a step in the right direction," would not suffice to heal the hurt his remarks had made.
The pontiff heads for more familiar religious ground on Wednesday, flying to Ephesus, western Turkey, to say mass at the location where the Virgin Mary is believed to have spent her last days.
He goes to Istanbul the same night to meet Patriarch Bartholomew I, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, for the first of a series of encounters the two men will have over the next two days.
Benedict XVI's stay in Istanbul has also been a source of controversy in nationalist and islamist circles, who accuse him of trying to forge an anti-Muslim alliance with the Greek Orthodox Church.
They are also furious at the pope's plan to tour Hagia Sophia, a 6th century Byzantine church converted to a mosque in 1453 when the Ottomans conquered Istanbul, then transformed into a museum in 1935.
Islamists, who want Hagia Sophia to become a mosque again, say the pope's visit is an indication of Christian ambitions to reclaim the Istanbul landmark as a church.
With tensions running high, security measures are extraordinary.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said over the weekend that they would be even tighter than those taken for US President George W. Bush during a 2004 NATO summit in Istanbul.
