The State Council of Turkey (the highest administrative court) annulled the decision of 1934 to turn the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into the museum, CNN Turk reports.
"The Turkish State Council canceled the decision of 1934 to turn Hagia Sofia into the museum," the TV channel reports, noting that now Hagia Sofia can be used as the mosque.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has previously stated that he is waiting for the decision of the State Council on the possibility of changing the status of Hagia Sophia and turning it from the museum to the mosque, and will do so depending on it.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier said that his country had the right to change the status of the cathedral, turning it into the mosque, without taking into account the opinions of other states.
Hagia Sophia was founded by the Christian Emperor Justinian and was opened on December 27, 537. The cathedral was the largest church in the Christian world for more than 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 became the museum by decree of the founder of the modern Turkish state Kemal Ataturk and was included in the UNESCO world heritage list.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from RIA Novosti