[spectre] Turkey will restore Balkan Ottoman sites

[EAF Director]

Friday 21st January, 2005

Turkey will restore Balkan Ottoman sites  

Big News Network.com     Wednesday 12th January, 2005  (UPI) 

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced last it will 
restore some 16,300 Ottoman Empire era buildings scattered throughout 
the Balkans.

Many of the buildings are in poor condition and in areas where the 
Muslim population has dwindled.

A ministry spokesman said budgets already have been allocated for 
some of the most important monuments marked for restoration in the 
unprecedented effort to save Turkey's architectural heritage in other 
countries. Among the largest grants are $265,000 for the restoration 
of the Sultan Mehmet Fatih Mosque (1462) in Kyusgtendil, Bulgaria, 
and $257,000 for the Maktul Ibrahim Pasa Mosque (1616) in Razgrad, 
Bulgaria.

Some 3,999 structues to be restored are in Bulgaria and 622 in 
Kosovo, many of them in the town of Prizren occupied by the Ottoman 
Turks in 1455. The main mosque and Turkish baths in Prizren top the 
list of projects there. Also to be restored is the childhood home of 
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, in Thessalonica, 
Greece.

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