The State Duma regrets the decision of Turkey to change the status of Hagia Sofia

The State Duma regrets the decision of Turkey to change the status of the temple-museum of Hagia Sofia, the correspondent of the news agency reports on July 10. It is a pity that so far all calls have not taken any action, and the Turkish court overturned Ataturk's wisest decision. There may be many mosques, and Aya Sofia is one, the cathedral is unique in terms of historical value. Once again, it is a pity that so far Ankara is far from this understanding, said the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky (LDPR). The issue of changing the status of the temple-museum of Hagia Sofia only formally may seem to be an internal affair of Turkey, in fact, this is not quite so, the parliamentarian noted. Ayia Sofia is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List precisely in the status of a museum, which entails a number of legal obligations on the part of the Turkish authorities to preserve the universal value of this monument. He recalled that calls for Ankara not to turn the cathedral again into a mosque were addressed to the UN, representatives of the clergy, as well as the State Duma, most recently adopted their own appeal to the Turkish parliament with a request to once again carefully analyze the consequences of this possible decision for the preservation of interregional harmony, the symbol of which was St. Sophia back in 1935 by decision of the founder of the modern Turkish state Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The Turkish State Council approved a change in the status of Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul from a museum to a mosque.