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''The church and the Western public, because they saw Islam as the enemy, went on crusades. They occupied Istanbul, they killed thousands of people. Orthodox Christians and Jews were killed and tortured,'' he said.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, was the capital of the Eastern Roman and Byzantine Christian empires before being conquered by Ottoman Muslims in 1453.

''They (the Christians) saw war against those outside the Christian world as a holy duty,'' Bardakoglu continued. ''That's why the Western clerics always have in the back of their minds a crusade mentality and the idea of holy war,'' he claimed.

Bardakoglu said he suspected Benedict had the same mentality and asked the pope to ''look in the mirror'' before making remarks against Islam.

''If there's a religious antagonism in the West, it's the responsibility of the logic-ignoring Christian church,'' he said.

In his address on Tuesday, Benedict did not touch directly on the current controversy over Islamic extremism, although it is an issue he follows closely with concern. In Cologne, Germany, last year he urged Islamic leaders to take responsibility for their communities and teach their young to abhor violence.