Athens slams Ankara over anniversary ‘fiesta’

Greece yesterday denounced a decision by Turkey to hold a “fiesta” outside Istanbul’s Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia cathedral during Friday prayers on the anniversary of the city’s 1453 conquest by Ottoman troops. “The fiesta that Ankara is preparing at Hagia Sophia is disturbing and is to be denounced because, among other things, it has been designated a museum of world cultural heritage and is currently being used to promote other ends,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said yesterday, speaking to Greek broadcaster Skai. His comments came a few hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that imams will recite verses of the Quran in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia during Friday prayers to mark the 1453 anniversary. Erdogan has repeatedly irked Athens by suggesting that Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage site which now serves as a museum, could be reconverted into a mosque. Built in the 6th century, Hagia Sophia was the main seat of the Greek Orthodox Church until it was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the city, then known as Constantinople, in 1453. In 1935 Turkey’s secular founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk turned the structure into a museum that attracts millions of tourists each year.