“Hagia Sophia’s conversion is the culmination of Erdoğan’s long campaign to transform Turkey into a neo-Ottoman state or even empire…. On March 31, 2018, Erdoğan himself recited the first verse of the Quran there, dedicating his words to the “souls of all who left us this work as inheritance, especially Istanbul’s conqueror.”
Erdoğan’s reference to the conqueror of then Constantinople, Mehmet II, was quite deliberate and illustrates his desire to imitate the Ottoman sultan. As part of its reopening under the COVID-19 pandemic, Turkey had planned to reopen its mosques on June 12, but Erdoğan pushed for the reopening to take place on May 29 instead, the 567th anniversary of Constantinople’s capture by the sultan. Hence, the mosques’ reopening would also be a celebration of the act of conquest.”
Had good reaction to this article. Ambassador Brownback expressed his appreciation, and their was good feedback from Vice President Pence’s office. On Friday July 31, it was circulated on Capitol Hill.

Turkey has established military bases in Qatar and Somalia, deployed armed drones in northern Cyprus. It has made repeated military incursions into Syria and Iraq, and has likely made covert weapons shipments to terrorists in Nigeria.
There is also increased repression at home. Turkey leads the world in the number of imprisoned journalists. One aspect of this propaganda effort has been to threaten the status of Hagia Sophia, which was, for a millennium, the greatest church building in the world.

These events might play well at home, but have increased animosity to Turkey abroad and have left the country looking for friends where it can find them.

This is part of my ongoing series on Indonesia’s religious relations.

I was an invited participant in the State Department-hosted July 16-18, three-day high level “Ministerial” on religious freedom. The Ministerial was launched by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and hosted by Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. The official conference drew 1,000 invited people, and invitations had to be closed off months in advance. I describe the whole Ministerial in my article.

Quoted in “From DC to Mecca: Should ‘Human Dignity’ Be the New ‘Religious Freedom’?”

“Steven Waldman has something new to say about religious freedom in the US: His narrative includes heroes and villains on both sides of the political divide.”