Turkey holiday guide: best places to visit, stay, hotels and restaurants Cordelia Aspinall
A long weekend in Istanbul is looking like a real possibility this summer, following the news that Turkey is planning to allow Brits to visit this year (vaccine free).
Tourism minister Mehmet Ersoy said the country was “looking forward to welcoming British tourists with open arms” - no vaccines necessary - making it the first country to declare that Brits can travel there without having had the jab. “We will not require vaccination passports from international travellers when entering the country,” he said.
Finally, some good news. So where to flop? Here’s our guide on what to see, eat and where to bed down in Turkey.
26 January 2021
Centuries of heritage belonging to Christians and other minorities in Turkey are under threat following the agreement of new import restrictions between the US and Turkey, according to Armenian and Christian groups.
They have condemned as “reckless” and “a travesty” the bilateral Memorandum signed by the Trump administration in its final hours whereby the US has agreed to place import restrictions on heritage objects from Turkey and to repatriate “trafficked” cultural property. This, in effect, places the care and control of the vast heritage of all cultural, religious and ethnic groups in the hands of the Turkish government, which has a long track record of “destroying minorities” and their holy sites, even to the point of “erasing their memory from the landscape of their ancient, indigenous, homelands”, in the words of Armenian leader Aram Hamparian.
Turkey’s Abuse of Historic Churches
01/15/2021 Turkey (International Christian Concern) – Illegal treasure hunters recently defiled a 900-year-old church in Bursa, Turkey. The Turkish government placed Aya Yani church under preservation after the local population left the area decades ago due to persecution and genocide.
However, this church and other Christian faith sites, are often the targets of treasure seekers, hoping to find gold or items of worth in the historical buildings. Despite the named preservation for this church, it was allowed to decay and left abandoned for years.
Turkey’s history is riddled with examples of converting historical churches into mosques or restoring the buildings to become tourism sites. In this case, the church was left to crumble and be abused by those seeking earthly gain.
Dec 31 2020 03:42 Gmt+3
Last Updated On: Dec 31 2020 04:04 Gmt+3
Turkey has decided to turn the recently renovated Holy Trinity Armenian Church in the south-central Konya province into a cultural centre, the Armenian weekly newspaper Agos reported.
The 19th-century building, which has been closed to worship and visitors even after restoration project ended in 2017, will be re-opened as the World Masters of Humour Art House at an unannounced date, Agos said.
The project was carried out by the Akşehir municipality and the Konya Plain Project Regional Development Administration (KOP), at a total cost of 3.5 million Turkish liras ($475,000), it said.
The church is the latest historical Christian house of worship that Turkey has repurposed as either a mosque or religious tourism site this year. The sites include the Byzantine Chora Church and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.