Erdogan: new ''huge'' mosque in Istanbul

Turkey's Conservative Islamic Prime Minister, Recep Tayyep Erdogan, has announced that construction works of the new mosque are to start. The mosque will be built on a hill in Istanbul and ''it will be possible to see it from every single part of the city''. The new worship building will cover a surface of 15,000 square mt. on a hill in Camlica, in the Asian part of the Bosporus megalopolis (13 mln inhabitants), as Zaman reports. Erodogan, a former Istanbul mayor, announced that the construction works are due to start in two months. According to the centre-right wing opposition and the defenders of the secularism of the Turkish State founded 90 years ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Erdogan's government, which has been in office since 2002, is implementing a strategy of gradual ''Islamisation'' of the country. Erdogan said that the construction of another large mosque, covering a surface of 6,000 sq.mt. dedicated to Mimar Sinan will be completed in Istanbul by July and that five further worship places are under construction. In the past days, the Islamic Prime Minister prompted a heated debate when he spoke out against abortion, calling it ''a homicide'' and announcing the forthcoming presentation of a draft bill against voluntary interruption of pregnancy, which has been legal until the tenth week of pregnancy since 1983 in Turkey.(ANSAmed).