TURKEY: Muslim Turkey yesterday invited Pope Benedict to visit in 2006, deftly sidestepping a diplomatic conundrum that had risked embarrassing Ankara shortly before the start of its EU entry talks.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Turkey-based head of the world's 300 million-strong Orthodox Church, recently invited the pope to Istanbul on November 30th for St Andrew's Feast Day and the Vatican has signalled the pontiff's wish to accept. But Turkish authorities were uncomfortable with such timing, not least because before becoming pope, Benedict opposed Turkey's EU bid. Ankara starts its EU talks on October 3rd. The pope is keen to improve ties with eastern churches as part of his drive to strengthen Christian unity, but the patriarch's invitation had put Ankara in an awkward position.