- Well, Turkey's president says he plans

to convert Istanbul'sfamous Hagia Sophia landmark

back into a mosque.

The Hagia Sophia wasonce an Orthodox church,

later turned into amosque during Ottoman rule

and has served as a museum since 1935.

Now President Recep Erdogansays it was a "very big mistake

"to turn it into a museum."

Some Turks have beencalling for the structure

to be turned back into amosque for quite some time.

Those voices grew louder afterthe gunmen who killed Muslims

in New Zealand reportedlywrote in a manifesto

that the Hagia Sophia wouldbe free of minarets, Gordon?

- Well if this change happens,

the world has lost an historical landmark.

Here the Hagia Sophia,it was the largest church

in the ancient world.

It was the largest churchfor a thousand years,

and it goes back to therule of Emperor Justinian.

Within this church aresome wonderful mosaics

that will all be coveredup if it gets turned

into a mosque again.

These mosaics go all the wayback to the fourth century.

They're some of theearliest representations

of Jesus and the disciples in the world.

This is a UNESCO Heritage site.

That's one of the angelsdepicted in the Hagia Sophia.

It's a massive building, I've been there.

And you go back to 1453 atthe fall of Constantinople,

and one of the signaturethings that they did

was they took a horse,the leader of the army

took a horse into theHagia Sophia and declared

that it would forever now be a mosque.

So they're trying to go back to that,

and they're trying to show the victory

of Islam over Christianity.

And that was a fulfillmentof one of the prophecies

of the prophet Muhammad,

where he said first we'regoing to take Constantinople,

and then we're going to take Rome.

So to see this go from a museum

with all these historical treasures,

all of this history of oneof the leading capitals

of Christianity, and to see it turned back

into a mosque, well the UNneeds to step in on this.

And I urge our governmentto have our UN ambassador

file an official protest.

If this happens, then it just reaffirms

that when the Muslims come in,

they can absolutely desecrateany Christian church.

That's what happened here.

They turned a Christiancathedral into a mosque.

There's no need to have this.

We need to preserve the history.

We need to preserve thelegacy of the Hagia Sophia.