Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday asked Pope Benedict XVI to apologize for his recent comments on Islam, Turkey's semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

"This was an inappropriate statement against the peace religion Islam and its prophet in a milieu which dialogue among cultures, values and civilizations has started," Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.

"We cannot accept these statements. Islamic world cannot accept this. I think these statements cannot be accepted by Christian world and Catholic world as well," the prime minister said, urging the pope to apologize to the Islamic world and Muslims.

Erdogan's remarks came amid widespread anger from Muslims sparked by Pope Benedict XVI who quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor as saying that the Prophet Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things in a speech at Regensburg University in Germany on Tuesday.

The statement drew immediately criticism from Muslims worldwide.

Despite the mounting anger in Turkey, a secular Muslim country, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Pope Benedict XVI would pay a visit to Turkey from Nov. 28 to 30 as it was earlier planned, the Vatan daily newspaper reported on Saturday.

Source: Xinhua