Turkey by Numbers

aki - Background to deferral of Pope's visit.

The announcement yesterday that the Turkish government had given the official nod to a visit by Pope Benedict XVI next year is being interpreted in Turkey as a brush-off to another invitation by Patriarch Bartholomew I who invited the Pope on 28-30 November, for the Orthodox feast of St. Andrew. The pope had earlier accepted Bartholomew's invitation but under diplomatic rules he had to be formally invited by the Turkish president since he is the Vatican head of state.

In the official invitation, the Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer, said the visit would allow the Pope to see close up the environment of tolerance in Turkey and help the pontiff in his promotion of inter-religious dialogue.

However, analysts say there are two reasons behind the delay of the visit to 2006.

First, Ankara is seeking to buy time to make more changes in religious freedoms, in case Benedict XVI touches on such politically sensitive issues as non-Muslim minority rights or the reopening the the only Orthodox seminary in Turkey, situated on the island of Heybeliada off Istanbul. Backed by the European Union, Patriarch Bartholomew I is campaigning to reopen the seminary which has been closed for more than 30 years. Ankara has said it is willing to reopen it, but no concrete action has been taken so far.

The second reason is the controversial status of the Patriarch Bartholomew I. Ankara refuses to recognize Bartholomew's title of ecumenical patriarch - which denotes leadership of 250 million Orthodox worshippers in the world - since it is a political status.

Turkey treats him only as the spiritual leader of some 2,000 Orthodox Greeks in Turkey. The papal visit is considered a sign of precious support for Bartholomew's case, to cajole the Turkish government into accepting his universal title.

Nationalists and conservatives in Turkey accuse the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul of seeking an independent, Vatican-like status. They accuse Bartholomew I of playing politics, to seek the support of countries such as Greece and the United States to extract concessions from Ankara.

An allegation by Turkish researcher Aytunc Altindal in the magazine Tempo also highlighted a potential controversy concerning Hagia Sofia, a former Greek Orthodox church converted to a mosque, now a museum, and universally acknowledged as one of the great buildings of the world.

"If the pope prays in Hagia Sofia, it will create a big problem", according to Altindal. "The status of the 1500 year-old 'originally church-then mosque' has since 1934 been that of museum. Radical Islamic groups have campaigned many times to convert it into a mosque. Each time they failed, but in Christianity, the places where pope prays are holy places".

So if the pope were to pray there on November 30 to celebrate Saint Andrew's Day, radical Muslim groups, who have been campaigning for many years, will get angry and may react fiercely" he claims.

Benedict XVI would be the third pope to visit Turkey, after Paul VI in 1967 and his predecessor John Paul II, whose 1979 visit - his first foreign trip - was aimed primarily at enhancing dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, split since 1054.

Paul VI asked to pray in Hagia Sofia but was refused, on the grounds that the place is a museum.

Before becoming pope, Benedict XVI had publicly spoken out against Turkey's bid to join the EU and advised the country "to set up a cultural continent with neighbouring Arab countries".

Talks are due to being on 3 October on Turkey's eventual membership of the EU, but there is fierce debate around whether or not the country should be allowed to enter the 25-member bloc.

groong - Turkish nationalists protest pope visit.

A small group of Turkish nationalists on Sunday protested a possible visit by the pope, and the deputy premier criticized the Greek Orthodox patriarch for inviting the pontiff without first consulting the Turkish government.

Turkey's government on Thursday announced its own invitation to the pope to visit sometime next year, effectively canceling the Orthodox patriarch's earlier invitation for the pope to visit in November.

Turkey refuses to recognize Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I as the spiritual leader of the world's 200 million Orthodox Christians, considering him only the spiritual leader of Turkey's tiny Greek Orthodox minority. Bartholomew's personal invitation to the pope faced strong opposition here.

On Sunday, a few dozen members of the youth wing of the ultra nationalist Great Unity Party demonstrated near the sixth century Hagia Sophia - a famous Istanbul landmark and once Greek Orthodoxy's holiest shrine - after some newspapers speculated that the pontiff would pray inside the building. The church was long ago converted into a mosque, then a museum.

Bartholomew had invited Pope Benedict XVI to Istanbul, the seat of the patriarchate, for the Orthodox feast of St. Andrew in November. Benedict has made healing the 1,000-year-old rift with the Orthodox Church a goal of his pontificate and officials at the Vatican said the pope wanted to accept the invitation but was waiting for the agreement of Turkey, the host country.

That agreement did not come and the Turkish government is now waiting for the Vatican's response to its invitation to visit in 2006.

Turkey considers the pope to be the leader of a state, the Vatican, and has insisted that protocol dictates he be invited by the Turkish president.

Sahin said Bartholomew should have sought the consent of the Turkish government before inviting the pope.

"The patriarchate is a Turkish institution and the patriarch is a Turkish citizen," said Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin. "It is more appropriate for the patriarch to send his invitations through the Foreign Ministry in the future."

The patriarchate dates back to the Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which ruled the region from Constantinople. Some of finest churches in the world graced the city, which was then largely Greek.

Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered the city in 1453 and renamed it Istanbul. Its Greek population has since dwindled to less than 2,000. The Greek Orthodox patriarchate is in a relatively poor section of the city and is still a place of pilgrimage for Greeks.

Turkish officials had been deeply uncomfortable with the possibility of a papal visit that would focus on the church.

Turks fears that recognizing the patriarch's global influence could create a Vatican-style mini-state in Istanbul that would act against Turkish interests.

Many Turks also regard the new pope as unfriendly.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the pope questioned whether the European Union should open its doors to predominantly Muslim Turkey, saying its membership might be incompatible with European culture. Turkey hopes to start membership negotiations with the bloc on Oct. 3.

aki - German vote: Turkish press reaction.

Turkey's mainly pro-EU media has welcomed the provisional results of this weekend's German elections, in which Christian Democrat leader Angela Merkel's conservatives have secured a narrow victory but lack a majority to govern. "Shock to Merkel" is the headline of the liberal daily Hurriyet. It writes; "Expecting an overall victory, CDU leader Merkel is disappointed. Her policy against Turkey's membership to EU did not bring her extra votes".

Pro-Islamic and pro-EU Yeni Safak argues that this result is beneficial for Turkey. "Privileged response to Merkel" the headline says, referring to her proposal of 'privileged partnership' for Turkey, instead of full membership of the EU. The daily claims that to form a coalition, the conservatives will have to compromise on Turkey's EU bid.

Liberal Milliyet says that anti-Turk stance did not benefit Merkel. "The results of the German election is chaos. Gerhard Schroeder - a staunch supporter of Turkey's entry into EU - filled the gap and finished the race very close to Merkel. If the conservatives and the social democrats form a coalition and if the new foreign minister is from the social democrats, then it will be very difficult for Merkel to carry on her mission to stop Turkey entering the EU", Milliyet writes.

"Coalition inevitable" says another pro-EU daily, Sabah. The vast majority of the Turkish-German citizens voted for SPD, according to Sabah. An estimated 600,000 of the 2.6 million Turks in Germany are German citizens with the right to vote.

All newspapers also profiled the 3 Turkish-German deputies, Lale Akgun (SPD), Ekin Deligoz (Union 90/Greens) and Hakki Keskin (PDS) who were elected to parliament.