Pope Urges Tolerance In Central Asian Visit

By Sharon LaFraniere

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, September 23, 2001; Page A32

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Sept. 22 -- Pope John Paul II arrived today in this predominantly Muslim state in tense Central Asia, bearing a message of good wishes for Islamic leaders and for "all people of good will" who seek peace.

The 81-year-old pope, speaking in halting tones on the airport tarmac here in the Kazakh capital, made no reference to the recent terrorist attacks in the United States or the growing threat of U.S. retaliation against Afghanistan, 360 miles by car to the south. But he said "world issues should be resolved not by means of weapons but by peaceful means of negotiations and dialogue."

His decision to travel here despite the signs of an approaching war to the south touched many Muslims. Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's president, praised the pope's courage and his message of tolerance in the face of apparently growing divisions in the world.

Kazakhstan is separated from Afghanistan by Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Still, the worry that U.S. warplanes -- some of them possibly operating out of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- might attack Afghanistan and provoke retaliation here hung over this city of 350,000.

Several police officers were stationed at every intersection. One pilgrim from a neighboring town complained that the soldiers were so nervous, they turned back his bus at a checkpoint because the travelers lacked a formal invitation to the pope's open Mass on Sunday.

Erlan Idrisov, Kazakhstan's foreign minister, promised "Kazakhstan will be quiet" no matter what happens in Afghanistan. He said security measures were unprecedented, with more than 2,000 soldiers and police officers on hand.

The pope's three-day trip to Kazakhstan, to be followed by a three-day visit to Armenia, illustrates his penchant for traveling to places where his welcome is not entirely certain. Although Nazarbayev formally invited the pope, and greeted him with a stiff-legged, arm-waving parade of soldiers, there are few Roman Catholics here.

Catholics account for a tiny fraction of Kazakhstan's 15 million people. Most are from Polish, Ukrainian or German families who were among the hundreds of thousands deported here by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. In a country that spans 2,000 miles from east to west, there are only 62 priests and 74 nuns.

More than half of the country is Muslim; about 40 percent is Russian Orthodox.

Still, in the square outside Astana's new glass-and-concrete shopping center, Muslims and Orthodox Christians said they welcomed the pope as a spokesman for peace and tolerance in a moment of trouble and fear. A 36-year-old single mother, who gave her name only as Zulfira, said John Paul's visit "is very, very good."

"It is a sign of recognition and respect toward the Muslim religion. This awful tragedy in America -- I think their attitude toward Muslims is very negative. But we all know that not all Muslims are the same," she said.

Alla Borisovna, 60, who was collecting flower seeds along a river bank with a white wool shawl on her head, praised the pope as "a symbol of kindness" in "a very cruel world."

Borisovna and others said they were moved by the pope's gesture to victims of Stalinist repression. Traveling from the airport to the city on a road lined with well-wishers waving scarfs and billboards bearing his picture, John Paul stopped to say a silent prayer and lay a wreath at a memorial for Stalin's victims.

The pope's visit here, like his other forays into former Soviet territory, provoked a rebuke from the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexei II, in Moscow. Given the many Orthodox followers in Kazakhstan, the patriarch said, John Paul should have asked his permission before heading here.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company