ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey and Greece exchanged harsh words on Saturday about the conversion of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia church to a mosque, a day after Islamic prayers were held at the ancient site for the first time in nine decades.
FILE PHOTO: Worshipers attend afternoon prayers and visit the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque for the first time after it was declared a mosque again after 86 years, in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 24, 2020. REUTERS / Umit Bektas
President Tayyip Erdogan, who attended Friday’s ceremony that sealed his ambition to restore the Muslim cult in Hagia Sophia, did not mention Greece, but said that critics of the move were simply against Muslims and Turkey.
Greek criticism of the move has been particularly scathing, underscoring the strained ties between Greece and Turkey. Hagia Sophia was formerly a museum and is seen by most Greeks as the center of their Orthodox Christian religion: church bells rang mourning across Greece on Friday.
“We see that the targets of those countries that have made so much noise in recent days are not Hagia Sophia or the eastern Mediterranean,” Erdogan said in a televised speech.
“(Its objectives) are the very presence of the Turkish nation and the Muslims in this region,” he said.
In a statement on Saturday morning, the spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that “Greece once again showed its enmity towards Islam and Turkey with the excuse of reacting to the Hagia Sophia mosque open to prayers.”
He strongly condemned the hostile statements by the Greek government and members of parliament and the burning of Turkish flags in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.
The Greek Foreign Ministry responded with its own statement, saying that “the 21st century international community is surprised to see the fanatical religious and nationalistic ramblings of Turkey today.”
On Friday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called Turkey a “troublemaker,” and the conversion of the site is an “affront to 21st century civilization.”
Greece and Turkey disagree on a variety of issues from airspace to sea areas in the eastern Mediterranean and ethnically divided Cyprus.
Additional reports by Michele Kambas in Athens; Written by Daren Butler; Edited by Frances Kerry
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