Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Istanbul's Hagia Sophia should be renamed as a mosque instead of a museum after Sunday's (March 31) elections, but did not say whether the status of the landmark site would be changed.
Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the foremost cathedral in Christendom for 900 years before becoming one of Islam's greatest mosques for 500 years under the Ottoman Empire, until 1935. It was turned into a museum in 1935 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of Modern Turkey.
In 2014, amid rumors of a possible change, senior Erdogan adviser Ibrahim Kalin said there were no plans to alter the monument's status.
In the lead-up to local elections on Sunday, Erdogan has appealed to religious sentiments to drum up support for his party, invoking the New Zealand mosque killings as examples of the threats that Turkey, and Islam, face.
He has also brought up the issue of Hagia Sophia several times.
REUTERS
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