AHI Puts Blinken on Notice about Turkey’s Planned Conversion of Historic Orthodox Church
No. 17
WASHINGTON, DC — American Hellenic Institute (AHI) President Nick Larigakis wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to raise the matter of Turkey’s revived plans to convert the historic Chora Church, located in Istanbul, into a mosque later this month, as press reports indicated.
Larigakis called on Secretary Blinken to hold Turkey to account for its abysmal records on religious freedom and human rights.
“The U.S. government should not engage in an appeasement of Turkey,” Larigakis writes. “Turkey must cease and desist in its violations of religious freedom.”
Larigakis cites that Turkey must implement and strictly enforce the guarantees of religious freedom and human and minority rights set forth in the Treaty of Lausanne, the UN Charter, and U.S. laws, including the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA).
Read the letter here.
Background
The Chora Church has operated as a UNESCO-designated museum for all faiths for approximately eighty years.
The revived plans to convert Chora Church follows the Turkish government’s actions to convert the Hagia Sophia from a UNESCO-designated museum to a mosque in 2020.
The American Hellenic Institute is an independent non-profit Greek American public policy center and think tank that works to strengthen relations between the United States and Greece and Cyprus, and within the Greek American community.
For additional information, please contact us at (202) 785-8430 or pr@ahiworld.org. For general information about the activities of AHI, please see our website at http://www.ahiworld.org.
