Erdoğan, Pope Leo XIV call for global peace, stability in historic visit

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, center, addresses Pope Leo XIV during a meeting with authorities, members of the civil society and diplomats in the Presidential Palace's national library, in Ankara, Türkiye, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pope Leo XIV has emphasized the pursuit of global peace and stability during the latter's historic visit to Türkiye.

"His visit to Türkiye, where places of worship of different faiths have illuminated the same sky for centuries, is a meaningful occasion that highlights both our country's special position and our shared values,” Erdoğan said on Nov. 27 at a press conference alongside Leo in Ankara.

Leo arrived in Türkiye earlier in the day as part of plans by Pope Francis to mark an important Christian anniversary and bring a message of peace to the region.

“As heirs to a history where different cultures and civilizations coexisted peacefully, we are doing and will continue to do everything we can to foster an environment of global peace and stability,” Erdoğan said.

“I wholeheartedly believe that the messages given from Türkiye during this visit will reach the Turkish-Islamic world and the entire Christian world, further increasing hope for peace in the world.”

Erdoğan praised the pope’s “necessary support and contribution” to global crises, calling his calls for peace and dialogue valuable.

For his part, Leo warned that the world is experiencing “a period of high-tension global conflict dominated by economic and military power strategies” and urged the international community not to yield to “preparing the ground for a third world war, waged gradually.”

“The future of humanity is at stake,” he said. “Today, more than ever, we need those who will encourage dialogue and implement it with firm will and patient perseverance.”

Speaking to reporters on board his plane, Leo acknowledged the historic nature of his first foreign trip and said he has been looking forward to it because of what it means for Christians and for peace in the world.

Leo said he knows the visit to commemorate a key ecumenical anniversary was important for Christians. But he said he hoped his broader message of peace would resonate worldwide.

“We hope to also announce, transmit and proclaim how important peace is throughout the world," he said. "And to invite all people to come together to search for greater unity, greater harmony, and to look for the ways that all men and women can truly be brothers and sisters in spite of differences, in spite of different religions, in spite of different beliefs.”

Leo was welcomed on the tarmac of Ankara's Esenboğa Airport by a military guard of honor. Strolling along a turquoise carpet, he shook hands with Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, other officials and senior church figures from Türkiye.

Later, he arrived at the mausoleum of modern Türkiye founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Leo strolled along a path lined with statues of lions behind a military detachment carrying a red-and-while floral tribute bearing his papal title.

He laid the floral arrangement bearing the colors of the Turkish flag in front of the marble grave with the help of two honor guards and observed a minute a silence.

The American pope was to move late on Nov. 27 to Istanbul for three days of ecumenical and interfaith meetings that will be followed by the Lebanese leg of his trip.

Leo’s visit comes as Türkiye has cast itself as a key intermediary in peace negotiations for the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

Ankara has hosted rounds of low-level talks between Russia and Ukraine and has offered to take part in the stabilization force in Gaza to help uphold the fragile ceasefire.

The main impetus for Leo to travel to Türkiye is to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.

Leo prayed with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, at the site of the A.D. 325 gathering in today’s İznik in northwestern Türkiye, and signed a joint declaration in a visible sign of Christian unity.

Eastern and Western churches were united until the Great Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope.

While the visit is timed for the important Catholic-Orthodox anniversary, it will also allow Leo to reinforce the church’s relations with Muslims. He is due to visit the Blue Mosque and preside over an interfaith meeting in Istanbul.