"If I could, I would kill the pope with my own hands," he said. But the Vatican has called for calm: "There are no worries about the visit of Benedict XVI."
Vatican City (AsiaNews) "There are no worries about the pope's trip to Turkey." Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, called for calm after a man fired three shots outside the Italian Consulate in Istanbul this afternoon to protest against the visit of Benedict XVI to Turkey. When he was arrested, the man said: "If I could, I would kill the pope with my own hands." And he added: "My hope is that others too will protest after what I did today."
The man's words, reported by Turkish media together with his declaration that he was "happy to be a Muslim", indicate his "reasons" for firing the shots. The phrase yelled out can be traced to the motto of the founder of Turkish Republic, Kemal Ataturk, "happy is he who can call himself a Turk", which is used by fundamentalists in the controversy over the "secular" structure of Turkey.
According to Turkish media, the man, whose identity was withheld by police, is called Ibrahim Ak and he is 26.
But Benedict XVI "will go to Ankara and Istanbul to throw down bridges and to strengthen dialogue," Fr Lombardi reiterated this evening. "I think this is only an isolated incident and it does not disturb the overall calm preparations for the trip. We don't believe the case should be given much weight even though it was obviously not a pleasant episode. However, I repeat, there are no worries and everything is going ahead smoothly."