Agence France Presse — English
September 29, 2005 Thursday 1:49 PM GMT

UN envoy meets Orthodox Church leader in Turkey

ISTANBUL

US special envoy Karen Hughes met the head of the Orthodox Church,
Patriarch Bartholomew I, here on Thursday at the end of a
three-country regional tour, sources from her delgation said.

No statement was issued after the meeting as Hughes, undersecretary
of state for public diplomacy, left for Washington at the end of a
tour that also took her to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The aim of the trip was to polish the image, battered by the war in
Iraq, of the United States in the Muslim world.

While in Istanbul, Hughes also met representatives of the Muslim,
Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish and Syriac communities.

One issue likely to have come up in her talks with Bartholomew I was
the fate of the Greek Orthodox seminary on the island of Heybeliada
(Halki in Greek), off Istanbul, that was closed down by Turkey in
1971.

Washington, along with Greece, wants Turkey to re-open the school.

The Turkish government has said on several occasions that it is
looking into ways to allow the school to re-open.

Improving rights for non-Muslim communities is a key requirement
Turkey needs to fulfill in order to become a member of the European
Union, with which it is scheduled to begin accession talks on Monday.

Turkey, 99 percent Muslim, is also home to some 40,000 Armenians,
35,000 Jews, 20,000 Syriacs and 4,000 Orthodox Greeks, who live
mainly in Istanbul, the country’s biggest city.