"Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged Wednesday that his government would remove any remaining obstacles to religious freedoms in Turkey as he opened a complex of Muslim, Christian and Jewish worship sites.
The "Garden of Religions" in the Mediterranean resort of Belek, which contains a mosque, a church and a synagogue, was inaugurated to underscore inter-cultural tolerance at a time when Turkey is under fire from the EU for failing to fully respect the rights of its non-Muslim minorities."
"Leaders of Turkey's non-Muslim minorities hailed the inauguration of the "Garden of Religions," but not without some barbed remarks on legal snags restricting their activities.
"Catholics are able to practice their religion in Turkey but do not have (property) rights over churches. I hope they will have that right one day," Father Alphonse Sammut, a representative of the Catholic community said, according to Anatolia.
Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Mesrob II, for his part, said that non-Muslim places of worship should be opened in all major Turkish cities.
"This should be done either by rennovating historical sites or by building new ones as the one here," he said."
EUbusiness - Erdogan lauds tolerance as 'Garden of Religions' opens in Turkey
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