Daily Sabah – Turkey on Saturday slammed the reaction seen in Greece to the reopening of the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque to worship.
“Greece again revealed its hostility to Islam and Turkey under the pretext of reaction to the opening of the Hagia Sophia Mosque to worship,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“We strongly condemn the Greek Government and the members of the Parliament over their hostile statements and allowing a public burning of our glorious flag in Thessaloniki.”
The “Europe’s spoiled children” who cannot stand seeing prayers performed in the Hagia Sophia have shown themselves to be “delusional” once again, the statement added.
“These racists (who burned the Turkish flags), who have not learned their lesson from history, who disrespect our glorious flag, should remember their fate in the Aegean. Greece must wake up from the Byzantine dream it has not been able to wake up from for 567 years, and get rid of its contusion,” the ministry said.
The Hagia Sophia was opened to prayer as a mosque in line with the will of the Turkish people and belonged to Turkey like all cultural assets in the country, it added.
The statement also noted that Greece is the only European country with no mosque in the capital and whose pressure on its Muslim Turkish community is recorded by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
The Hagia Sophia Mosque reopened for worship Friday for the first time in 86 years. Earlier, this month a Turkish court annulled a 1934 Turkish government decree that transformed the Hagia Sophia into a museum, paving the way for its use as a mosque.
