Efes, Turkey - Turkey on Wednesday praised the conciliatory tone of Pope Benedict during his visit to the predominantly Muslim country and his apparent new support for Ankara's bid to join the European Union.
Celebrating mass at a shrine in southwestern Turkey where legend says the Virgin Mary lived out her last days, Benedict stressed that a common devotion to the mother of Jesus Christ is another link binding Christians and Muslims.
As Benedict continued his four-day visit, Turkey focused on his gestures on arrival on Tuesday: his apparent support for Ankara's bid to join the European Union and praise for Islam after a recent speech Muslims found insulting.
"This is a big warning for conservative politicians who think the EU is a Christian club," wrote daily Milliyet columnist Guneri Civaoglu.
At the NATO summit in Riga, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan had told him he was "very satisfied" with the start of the Pope's trip.
Benedict said in his sermon: "From here in Ephesus, a city blessed by the presence of Mary Most Holy -- who we know is loved and venerated also by Muslims -- let us lift up to the Lord a special prayer for peace between peoples."
The Koran describes Mary as the virgin mother of Jesus, whom Muslims consider the greatest prophet after Mohammed, and some Muslims -- especially women -- visit shrines to her.
The rough stone house where she is said to have died stands amid olive and pine trees outside the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, now a collection of ruins known in Turkish as Efes.
Benedict's trip was originally meant just as a visit to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul to try to bring the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches closer. There are some 100,000 Christians in Turkey.
But his speech in September seemed to stress differences between Christianity and Islam and to link Islam and violence -- a link he denied making after Muslims protested angrily.
That turned the trip into a symbolic visit to the Muslim world crucial for the future of Vatican relations with Islam.
MAKING UP FOR SPEECH
Benedict's comments on his first official visit to a Muslim country appeared to go a long way toward making up for that speech in Germany, which led to several attacks on churches in the Muslim world and the murder of an Italian nun in Somalia.
The Pope, reportedly under tighter security than when President Bush visited in 2004, also appeared to do an about-face from his previous opposition to Ankara's EU bid.
A Vatican spokesman played down gesture but did not deny it.
Turks had hoped the Pontiff's visit would convince skeptical Europeans that the relatively poor country of 73 million was worthy of EU membership.
The EU has criticized Turkey for its treatment of non-Muslim religious minorities. Benedict stressed in another Ankara speech that all democratic countries must guarantee religious freedom.
Turkey's EU ambitions suffered a blow on Wednesday when the European Commission decided to recommend the suspension of part of Turkey's EU membership talks over Ankara's failure to open its ports to traffic from EU member Cyprus.
(Additional reporting by Emma Ross-Thomas in Istanbul)