Obama has first audience with Pope

Vatican City: President Barack Obama is meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Shaking hands with the pope, Obama said it was "a great honor" to meet him.

The two men have spoken by phone but have not met before.

They then sat at the pontiff's desk and exchanged pleasantries before reporters and photographers were ushered out of the ornate room.

Obama earlier on Friday met with Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state.

Obama is accompanied by his wife and daughters. After the meeting at the Vatican, Obama will be leaving Italy late on Friday for Ghana.

It is Obama's first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as president, but second visit to Africa. He gave a speech in Egypt last month.

Obama thanked Pope for a "great honour" as they went into private talks in the pontiff's personal libary at the Vatican.

Obama wore a black suit and tie and Benedict was wearing a red chasuble over a lace surplice covering his white cassock.

Obama "recognises that this is much more than your typical state visit", his aide Denis McDonough said in nearby L'Aquila, central Italy, where a three-day Group of Eight (G8) summit, which Obama attended, was winding up.

Photographers at the Vatican overheard Obama telling the pope that the summit of powerful nations had been "very productive and concrete", adding that world leaders had agreed a food security programme worth $20 billion (Dh73.4 billion).

At the private audience, "there are issues on which they'll agree, issues on which they'll disagree, and issues on which they'll agree to continue to work on going forward," McDonough said.

Obama told the Italian bishops' mouthpiece L'Avvenire that he hoped to find much common ground with the pope "from peace in the Middle East to the fight against poverty, from climate change to immigration, all these areas where the pope has shown extraordinary leadership".

Obama has made relaunching the Mideast peace process a top priority, pledging a new beginning for Islam and the United States in a landmark speech to the world's Muslims delivered in Cairo last month.

The Vatican called this a 'significant' step toward better ties.