Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that policies enacted by “certain countries and institutions since the start of the Gaza conflict have shaken faith in the European Union.”
TURKEY
Expert Tugba Tanyieri Erdemir joins Thanos Davelis to look at what the latest decision by Turkey’s government to convert the monastery of Chora, a former Byzantine church and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Istanbul, into a mosque will mean for the site, and look at the message it sends on religious freedom, especially in light of the latest USCIRF report.
Baykar, the Turkish defense contractor run by the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Selcuk Bayraktar, has referred to Ankara’s controversial expansionist doctrine in a press release hailing a firing test at sea with its newly developed “Bayraktar Akinci” unarmed combat aerial vehicle.
The US Department of State is aware of Turkey’s conversion of another historical Byzantine church into a mosque, and urges the government to “respect” the “diverse histories” of heritage sites that have hosted different religious communities.
Responding to calls that his scheduled visit to Ankara on Monday should be postponed due to the conversion of the Chora monastery in Istanbul into a mosque, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stressed on Wednesday that this would not be the correct course of action as “open channels must be maintained.”
The Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate note with dismay and strongly condemn Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to proceed with plans to convert the Monastery of Chora to a mosque.
The Orthodox Archdiocese of America strongly condemned the conversion of the Monastery of Chora in Istanbul into a mosque and underlined that the US government “should be concerned about these developments.”
Education, Religious Affairs and Sports Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis has said he raised the conversion of a former Byzantine church in Istanbul, the Church of St. Saviour in Chora, into a mosque during his first official visit to the Vatican in Rome.
In what is seen as a reflection of its inherently revisionist approach to Greek-Turkish relations, Ankara sent mixed signals just days before the planned meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkish capital.
Over the past two years an area south of Greece’s Peloponnese had become a major location to circumvent sanctions against Russian oil exports.
During his customary monthly briefing at the Presidential Mansion, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed his dissatisfaction with the conversion of the former Byzantine church in Istanbul, the Monastery of Chora, into a mosque.
A team from the Financial Action Task Force, an international crime watchdog that “grey-listed” Turkey in 2021, held meetings with Turkish authorities last week ahead of its highly-anticipated report on the country next month, two sources said.
Main opposition SYRIZA party condemned on Tuesday Turkey’s decision to formally open a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque, while it also criticized the government’s reaction as too soft.
The formal opening of a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque “insults its character as a UNESCO world cultural heritage monument belonging to humanity,” the Foreign Ministry has said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan formally opened a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque on Monday, four years after his government had designated it a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighboring Greece.
He is the author who opined that “geography is taking revenge” and that “you have to think about war, that’s the only way to be prepared.”
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