When Erdogan entered politics a little less than three decades ago in Turkey, observers say the status of the Hagia Sophia was not particularly on his agenda. On the contrary, he once objected to the calls to convert it into a mosque. But his rhetoric changed in 2019 during municipal elections in Istanbul that he ended up losing.
The next instance when Erdogan brought up the subject of converting the Hagia Sophia coincided with US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Observers believe that Erdogan’s plans for the conversion of the Hagia Sophia are closely connected with his attempts to score political points more than anything else and perhaps to drum up political support that he has seen diminishing following his loss in Istanbul’s municipal elections last year.
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Greece’s Foreign Ministry had issued a statement saying this move was a violation of UNESCO’s ‘Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage’. Greece had said the Hagia Sophia had “been designated a museum of world cultural heritage and is currently being used to promote other purposes”. Turkey responded by saying that Greece’s objections to the reading of passages from the Quran were indicative of its “intolerant psychology”.1
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- 1. The controversy surrounding the Hagia Sophia comes at a time when there have been diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Greece over other issues. In May this year, Greece objected to the reading of passages from the Quran inside the Hagia Sophia on the 567th anniversary of the Ottoman invasion of the former Byzantine capital, another instance of disagreement between the two countries regarding the conversion of the Hagia Sophia.