ANKARA- Anadolu Agency
Türkiye critical Greece on August 21 due to a declaration from Athens on the conversion of the Kariye (Chora) From the museum to the mosque.
“The Chora Mosque, like the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque and other cultural properties on our lands, belong to Turkey and are our property,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement. communicated.
The comment comes after Greek counterparts made a statement against the reopening of the 6th-century Kariye Museum as a mosque in Istanbul.
Aksoy said Turkey meticulously protects its cultural properties within the framework of Turkey’s tradition of tolerance stemming from its culture, history and its rights and responsibilities arising from international conventions.
“We would like to emphasize that a change of status carried out in a world heritage site does not contradict the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage,” Aksoy said.
He also said that Greece, which has transformed Ottoman heritage mosques and masjids on its territory into churches, is the last country that should have something to say about respecting other religions.
Aksoy said that Greece, which restricts the human rights and freedom of the Turkish minority in its country through all kinds of repressive practices despite international agreements, has no right to lecture Turkey.
“Greece’s efforts to create false agendas in a historically complex region are doomed to failure.
“We once again invite Greece to make peace with its history and provide Muslims with the necessary facilities to worship in their own country,” Aksoy added.
The 6th-century Kariye Museum in Istanbul’s Fatih district on the historic peninsula will reopen as a mosque for prayers, authorities announced Friday.
A presidential decree published in the country’s Official Gazette reversed a 1945 Cabinet decision making Chora, Kariye in Turkish, a museum.
