Thessaloniki mayor set to renew Turk’s heritage

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

‘Maybe you are little bit Greek, maybe I am a little bit Turkish,’ says Thessaloniki mayor. AA photo

The mayor of Thessaloniki will renovate Freedom Square, where Young Turks demonstrated for a revolution in 1908, in a bid to lure more tourists to visit landmarks from the city’s Ottoman-ruled past.

“It was a significant moment for Turkey at that time,” Yiannis Boutaris, the mayor of Thessaloniki, told a group of journalists yesterday.

Boutaris also said they were working on building a monument to the movement headed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

They also plan to repair the house of an exiled Ottoman sultan in the city, the mayor said, noting as well the Greek government’s decision to open Ottoman mosques in the city for prayers.

Boutaris, the city’s first socialist-backed mayor in 24 years, expressed his sympathy for Turkish culture. “I see myself as a brother with Turks.” The mayor also said he paid no attention to the criticisms of nationalists.