On July 2, the Turkish CoS will decide whether the Hagia Sophia will be turned into a mosque.

According to the report, the Turkish CoS will consider the request to annul the presidential decree that turned the Church of Hagia Sophia into a museum in 1934. The request was made in 2016 by an otherwise unknown association for the protection of Waqf, historical and environmental monuments, the Association for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and the Environment, calling for the authenticity of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's signature to be examined in the aforementioned presidential decree. If the appeal is accepted, Yeni Safak reports, then the effort to turn it into a Hagia Sophia mosque will begin, a few days after Recep Tayyip Erdogan again called for a change in its status. The same association has filed other appeals in the past with the same request, citing different reasons each time, but all were rejected.

Ankara has recently raised the bar of controversy with Greece over Hagia Sophia, and according to a Hurriyet report last week, the Turkish president first staged a provocative fiesta on the occasion of the fall of Constantinople, which included reading the Koran. inside the historic church of Christianity, he ordered a change in the status of the museum of Hagia Sophia. "Prayer can be read in the Hagia Sophia, and the verse of conquest by the Koran can be read. Our nation must decide on this. Hagia Sophia as a mosque can continue to receive tourists. Like the Blue Mosque. Special sensitivity is required in this matter. Do some research on Hagia Sophia, look at it and we'll talk, "Erdogan was quoted as saying at a meeting with party officials.