"No red carpet for the Pope" said one Turkish headline today — and indeed there were no banners, portraits or flag waving crowds of the kind you normally see on papal trips abroad as Pope Benedict XVI arrived for the most hazardous and delicate trip of his pontificate so far.

But equally, despite noisy protests against the Popes visit over the past few days and threats of violence, the streets of Ankara were also devoid of demonstrators, partly because of a ferocious security clampdown by Turkish police.

The Pope stepped from his Alitalia plane to meet Tayyip Erdogan, the pro-Islamic Prime Minister, wearing a heavy white topcoat which may or may not conceal a bullet proof vest. Vatican officials admit the question of whether he should wear one was raised, but that the pontiff was reluctant to do so.

The Pope appeared to nod understandingly when Mr Erdogan, who only agreed to meet the pontiff at the last moment, explained that he had leave immediately for the NATO summit in Riga.

The two men then spoke for twenty minutes in the VIP lounge of Ankara airport and appeared keen to dispel tensions that have surrounded the Pope in the Islamic world since he appeared to conflate Islam and violence in a speech at the University of Regensburg in September.

The Pope said that he wanted to visit Turkey to "reiterate the solidarity between the cultures" adding: "It is a democratic, Islamic country and a bridge... I wanted to come to Turkey since becoming Pope because I love this culture."

Mr Erdogan, a moderate leader who told the Turkish parliament that he expected the rest of the country to welcome the Pope "with our traditional hospitality", affirmed the pontiff as a figure of tolerance.

"I explained to him that Islam is a religion of love and tolerance, and the Pope agrees with me," he said. "He too gave the message that Islam is a religion of love and peace."

But the first misunderstanding was not far away. After their meeting, Mr Erdogan told journalists that the Pope, who as a cardinal said that admitting predominantly Muslim Turkey to the EU would be "a grave error against the tide of history", had now told him he hoped Turkey would join.

"He told me, ’We want Turkey to be part of the EU,'" said Mr Erdogan. "It is an honourable commendation."

Vatican officials offered a slightly different version, saying the Pope had told the Turkish leader that the Vatican "views with favour the steps Turkey is taking toward fulfillment of the requirements of the EU body", and had stressed that the Vatican was not a political entity.

Despite the miscommunication, the Pope's remarks on a trip originally intended to reconcile Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox church but which has been overshadowed by the wider unease surrounding Christianity and Islam, managed to strike a conciliatory note from the start.

That good impression was followed by his first formal act on Turkish soil, the laying of a wreath at the Mausoleum of Ataturk, the founder of modern secular Turkey.

At the huge granite mausoleum, high on a hill in Ankara, we watched the Pope listen attentively to an account of Ataturk's life and the significance of the mausoleum as a focus of Turkish national unity before he mounted the steps in brilliant winter sunshine to lay the wreath.

As he did so the muezzin call to prayer drifted across the rooftops of Ankara, as if to remind the pontiff that he is in a predominantly Muslim country — and that quite apart from the political question of Turkey's relation with the rest of Europe, Turks are also looking to him to make amends for Regensburg, when he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor criticising Islam for its lack of reason and amenity to violence.

In an early attempt to undo the damage, he told the President of Turkey, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, that Christians and Muslims enjoyed "a mutual respect" based on the importance they attached to the sacred and "the dignity of the person".

The Pope also recalled that one his predecessors, Gregory VII, had told a North African Muslim prince in the eleventh century that they both worshipped "the one God".

Tomorrow, the Pope will make the first of a number of Christian appointments on his visit, travelling to celebrate mass at Ephesus, the ancient city where St Paul lived for three years and where the Virgin Mary is said to have lived after the death of the Christ.

He will be based for the rest of his visit in Istanbul, where police said today that all "the necessary measures and observations of the route the pope (will travel)" had been taken.

In the official climax to the visit, the Pope will be welcomed by Bartholomew I, the leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians, and, reflecting the Christian importance of Istanbul, once the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, he will spend the next two days meeting members of Turkey's small Catholic community and the leaders of the Armenian Orthodox church.

In Istanbul, Benedict XVI will also make the second papal visit to a mosque, after John Paul II prayed in Damascus in 2001. And he will go to the Haghia Sophia, the once Christian basilica that was converted to a spectacular mosque but made a museum during the secular rule of Ataturk.

Times Recommends

• Zardari still has to tackle tough questions
• Material evidence 'debunks' Turin Shroud
• BBC criticised over Uganda gay execution poll