No state welcome for Pope in Turkey.

The Turkish Embassy in Rome said today that no special welcome ceremony is planned when the Pope arrives in Ankara next month. There will be a red carpet, but no military honors.

And President Ahmet Necdet Sezer won’t be there either. He will welcome the Pope later at the Presidential Palace.

This appears to be an unprecedented non-observance of international protocol for welcoming visiting heads of state. When John Paul II visited Turkey in 1979, he received the full honors including a military gun salute.

The embassy said that the airport did not have the approprtae space for military honors.