On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the opening of the Hagia Sophia Church in Istanbul for Muslims to perform prayer, in the wake of a Turkish court annulling its current status as a museum.
"It was decided that the Hagia Sophia will be placed under the leadership of the Religious Affairs Presidency and will be opened for prayer," Erdogan said in a statement posted on Twitter.
The Turkish President announced that the first prayer will be held in Hagia Sophia on July 24.
Erdogan added that the Hagia Sophia, which dates back nearly 1500 years, will remain open to Muslims, Christians and all foreigners,
He said that Turkey exercised its sovereign right to convert it into a mosque.
On Friday, the highest administrative court in Turkey issued a decision stripping the status of the "museum" from the "Hagia Sophia" cathedral.
The Turkish court overturned the decision in 1934 to convert the former cathedral into a museum in Istanbul.