Pope Francis (L) and the president of the Religious Affairs, Professor Mehmet Gormez, give a joint press conference following their meeting in Ankara as part of a three day visit in Turkey on November 28, 2014. Pope Francis called for dialogue between faiths to end the Islamist extremism plaguing the Middle East as he visited Turkey for his first visit to the overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular state. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who welcomed Pope Francis as the first foreign dignitary to his controversial new presidential palace outside Ankara, for his part issued a strong warning about rising Islamophobia in the world. The 77-year-old Argentine pope will move to Istanbul on Saturday and Sunday, visiting key sites of the city's Byzantine and Ottoman heritage as well as meeting the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. AFP PHOTO / FILIPPO MONTEFORTE