PM aide says meeting still possible. Vatican confirms the possibility. Head of Religious Affairs Directorate criticises Benedict XVI, again. European Commission report on Turkey's reform will be soon released; a bad mark might have negative consequences for ethnic and religious minorities.
General İlker Başbug defends military's traditional role to guard state secularity and refers to the threat of increased power among religious communities.
Despite resistance and opposition by nationalists, books, newspapers and TV are starting to talk about the hitherto taboo issue. Judges are helping the process by throwing out cases against writers accused of insulting the nation and its institutions.
Stops in Ankara, Istanbul and Ephesus are planned. The press is divided in its judgment about whether the pope's words in Castel Gandolfo yesterday qualify as a public apology or not.
The controversy surrounding the Pope's speech on the relationship between Islam and violence seems to have been planned to bolster Turkey's fundamentalist nationalism. Turkish Christians call on moderate Muslims to speak out if they don't want their country to betray Atatürk's legacy and democracy.
The media shrouded the trip to Germany in silence, broken only to refer to a citation against Islam used by Pope Ratzinger, indicated as an example of what can be expected from the visit of an anti-Islamic in Turkey. The details of the papal trip have been laid down.
A man linked to the PKK has been arrested. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons claimed responsibility for one of yesterday's blasts. Then there are the implications of all this for Turkey's entry into Europe.
Even his church had been vandalised. Within a few weeks, he was to complete his mission and return to France. Christians are worried about the escalation of violence.
The murder by a religious fanatic of Judge Ozbilgin, accused of forbidding a woman from wearing a "turban" at school, reveals just how burning an issue the veil has become, separating defenders of secularization of the State from "religious" people.
One month after the priest's murder in Trabzon, the country has all but forgotten the case. There is no news about the trial of the young killer; the only matter the national mass media persists in bringing up is the charges of proselytism against Fr Andrea. The bishop of Anatolia: this is only a pretext to feed an anti-Christian and anti-western controversy.
Bishop Padovese: "Whoever wanted to erase his physical presence does not know that now his witness is stronger."
According to the Turkish press, the murder was not the act of an isolated gunman. The young assassin was linked to extremist religious circles. In Trabzon a town hall meeting condemns the killing of "a man of God".
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