Pope John Paul II arrived in mainly Muslim Kazakhstan Saturday for a four-day visit amid tight security after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The 81-year-old pontiff is on his first vist to the republic in the troubled central Asian region.
Kazakh authorities were hoping to reap political capital from the visit, presenting their country to the hundreds of the reporters covering the trip as a haven of religious tolerance in a troubled region.
Busloads of some 2,400 police were drafted into the Kazakh capital Astana ahead of the visit to the former Soviet state, his third to a former Soviet republic after Georgia and Ukraine.
Addressing a joint press conference with Kazakh authorities prior to the pontiff's arrival, Bishop Tomasz Peta underscored the good relations between followers of different religions in Kazakhstan.
There are an estimated eight million Muslims, six million Russian Orthodox and 300,000 Roman Catholics in this mostly secular former Soviet state of 15 million people.
The pope travels on to Armenia on Tuesday -- ASTANA (AFP)
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