BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th July, 2020) The European Union regrets the decision by Turkey to transform Istanbul's Hagia Sophia cathedral into a mosque, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said on Friday.
Earlier in the day, Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State, annulled the 1934 decree converting Hagia Sophia into a museum, meaning it can now be used as a mosque. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already signed the necessary decree.
"The ruling by the Turkish Council of State to overturn one of modern Turkey's landmark decisions and President Erdogan's decision to place the monument under the management of the Religious Affairs Presidency, is regrettable," Borrell said in a statement.
Hagia Sophia was founded by Byzantine Emperor Justinian as a cathedral and was opened on December 27, 537. The church, considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture, was the world's largest building for over a thousand years. After the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans and the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the cathedral was converted into a mosque, but since 1934, the building, by a decree of the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, became a museum and was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
