Word: erdogan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Gestures: The gradual reversal over the past week of Benedict's original opposition (as a Cardinal in 2004) to Turkey's eventual entry into the European Union - alluded to both by Vatican officials and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - was symbolically sealed like a gift on Thursday with the Pope's joint declaration with the Orthodox Patriarch that referred "positively" to European Union expansion. Notably the two Christian leaders cited the singular priority of religious freedom for any joining E.U. members...
Thankfully, this ecumenism is not limited to a strictly religious arena, for politics ought to go hand in hand with spiritual dialogue. Though the Vatican has adamantly claimed that this trip had no political overtones, the mildly Islamic government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan desperately needs a political hand for Turkey’s bid to enter the European Union. And true enough, Benedict landed at the political heart of the Turkish Republic, Ankara, before going to Istanbul today. Turkey can only benefit from the Pope’s visit...
...Vatican officials have said in recent days that they would welcome Turkey into the E.U. if it met all the requirements that have been set out by Brussels. This opening on Europe may help explain why, after having originally said it was impossible, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyiip Erdogan confirmed Monday that he would in fact meet Benedict on Tuesday afternoon at the Ankara airport, just before the Turkish leader flies off to a NATO summit. Still the most substantial achievements could be made in further healing relations with the Orthodox, a thousand years after the two churches parted ways...
...Orthodox Church, which represents a nervous 0.01% of the country's population. The Turkish government, miffed that as a Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had opposed Turkey's urgent bid to join the European Union, finally issued its own belated offer for 2006. But even now, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discovered a previous engagement that will take him out of the country while Benedict is in it. Although modest, sales of a Turkish novel subtitled Who Will Kill the Pope in Istanbul? (the book fingers everyone but Islamists) have increased as his trip approaches. The country is expected...
...current Prime Minister, to go abroad to study. When a woman named Merve Kavakci won election to the Turkish parliament wearing a head scarf in 1999, she was booed out of the Assembly and subsequently stripped of her citizenship. Now the country's conservative Muslim Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to lift the head-scarf ban, and millions of conservative Turks would be pleased if he did. But Erdogan risks provoking the ire of hard-line secularists. At a recent secularist demonstration in Ankara, a chanting mob surrounded a woman passing by in a head scarf and ordered...