The United States has sent a strong message to the Turkish government on the resumption of the Halki Theological Seminary on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the school’s closure.

As State Department spokesman Ned Price noted, “The United States continues to urge the Turkish government to respect the right to religious freedom, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to allow the re-establishment of religious freedom. In addition, we call on the Turkish government to allow all religious groups to retrain their clergy in the country.”

In his announcement, the representative of the State Department underlined that today marks 50 years since the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that all higher education institutions should either be nationalised or closed.