Valletta - An obviously tired Pope John Paul arrived in Malta yesterday on the last leg of his three-nation pilgrimage in the footsteps of St Paul.
Before he left Syria, after his three-day visit there, he made a fresh appeal for a "just peace" in the Middle East. As President Bashar Assad saw him off the Pope spoke of the Syrian people's suffering as a result of their country's long-running conflict with Israel but warned that peace can only come if "fundamental issues of truth and justice, of rights and responsibilities" are resolved.
In Malta he was met at the airport by President Guido Di Marco, and said that "after visiting some of the places especially connected to the history of salvation, at Sinai, in the Holy Land, and now in Athens and Damascus, my pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Paul brings me to you."