Pope Leo arrives in Turkey on closely watched first overseas trip

Pope Leo arrived in Turkey on his first trip outside Italy as leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday and was expected to make appeals for peace in the Middle East and urge unity among long-divided Christian churches.

The pope chose Turkey as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world's Christians today.

Leo landed in the capital Ankara shortly after midday (0900 GMT) for what is a crowded three-day itinerary in Turkey before heading on to Lebanon. It will be closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and visits sensitive cultural sites.

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The Turkish and Vatican flags flew above the cockpit as Leo disembarked from the plane, to be greeted by a Turkish delegation led by the country's culture and tourism minister.

Speaking to journalists aboard the papal flight from Rome, Leo said he wanted to use his first overseas trip to urge peace for the world, and to encourage people of different backgrounds to live together in harmony. "We hope to... announce, transmit, proclaim how important peace is throughout the world," the pope said at the beginning of the three-hour flight. "And to invite all people to come together, to search for greater unity, greater harmony."

Foreign travel has become a major part of the modern papacy, with popes attracting international attention as they lead events with crowds sometimes in the millions, give foreign policy speeches and conduct international diplomacy. "It's a very important trip because we do not know much yet about Leo's geopolitical views, and this is the first big chance for him to make them clear," Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic who follows the Vatican, told Reuters.

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Leo was elected in May by the world's Catholic cardinals to succeed the late Pope Francis. A relative unknown on the world stage before his election, Leo spent decades as a missionary in Peru and only became a Vatican official in 2023.

Francis had been planning to visit Turkey and Lebanon but was unable to go because of his worsening health.

Leo, 70, was scheduled to meet President Tayyip Erdogan and address political leaders in the Turkish capital.

He will fly on Thursday evening to Istanbul, home to Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians. Orthodox and Catholic Christians split in the East-West Schism of 1054, but have generally sought in recent decades to build closer ties.

Leo and Bartholomew travel on Friday to Iznik, 140 km southeast of Istanbul and once called Nicaea, where early churchmen formulated the Nicene Creed, which lays out what remain the core beliefs of most Christians today. In a departure from normal practice - popes usually speak Italian on foreign trips - Leo is expected to speak English in his speeches in Turkey. On the flight to Ankara, two journalists presented the American pope with pumpkin pies, a staple of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday that was also taking place on Thursday.