A Syrian general and 38 other soldiers defected to Turkey, state television said, days after Syria shot down a Turkish warplane, escalating tensions between the two neighbours.

Pope Benedict XVI has been greeted in Turkey with a lecture on how the Christian West scorns Islam. He left yesterday with Istanbul’s chief Islamic cleric speaking lyrically of better days ahead between the faiths.

Turkey claimed today it had foiled a plot by al-Qaida linked militants to launch a bomb attack on a Nato summit in Istanbul next month that Tony Blair and George Bush are to attend.