Turkey thawing

With the first day of the Pope's visit over, and the second well underway, there seems to be a thawing with respect to Turkish citizen’s supposed stance toward the pontiff.

Such has been the relative peace, and moderate to little protest, one wonders if this is the same country that just last week news agencies were predicting extreme opposition to Pope Benedict’s presence in the country.

Part of the warming can no doubt be traced back to the decision of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – a devout Muslim – to meet with the Pope, after previously saying that he was too busy to be bothered.

But there is another reason for the calm – and something that hasn’t hit the press too much: just prior to the Pope arriving to Turkey, Deniz Baykal the main opposition party leader, called for an end to any anti-pope protests. Not only that, but Baykal practically told Turks that it was their civic duty to make the Pope’s visit “seemless” and not give Turkey a bad name.

Ever the politician, Baykal who leads the Republican People's Party (CHP), has also pointed his finger at the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party for its shoddy handling of the pre-visit

This is not to say that there aren’t some hard-headed nuts who think the Pope’s visit is misguided, to say the least.

On such person is Yasar Okuyan, leader of the Independence and Change Party (HURPARTI), who has been a vocal critic of the Pope. According to Okuyan, the meeting of Erdogan with Benedict was a scandal. He has also warned that measures must be implemented to ensure that Pope Benedict doesn’t attempt to perform any religious rite or prayers when he visits the Hagia Sophia museum, 1,500-year-old site that was converted from a Byzantine church in 1453 to a mosque when the Muslims conquered Constantinople.