Controversial friendship monument to be moved across Turkey.
Following a decision to demolish sculptor Mehmet Aksoy's 'Monument to Humanity,' described by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as 'freakish,' the Karhsıyaka Municipality in Izmir has contacted the Kars Municipality and asked if it could be moved to the western city. 'Our municipality needed a sculpture and decided to bring it to Izmir,' says Karshıyaka Municipality Press Consultant Sedat Sozeri.
A large monument in the eastern city of Kars that was harshly criticized by the prime minister will be relocated to the Karshıyaka district of the western city of Izmir, a municipal representative said Tuesday.
“We were looking for a special sculpture for Karshıyaka. We decided to bring the ‘Monument to Humanity’ to Izmir when we heard it was going to be demolished,” Karshıyaka Municipality Press Consultant Sedat Sozeri, who visited the monument in Kars on Tuesday along with a nine-person committee, told the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
Removing the monument from Kars would strip it of its symbolic meaning, according to sculptor Mehmet Aksoy, who started working on the statue in 2006 and dedicated it to the friendship of Turkish and Armenian people. Kars was chosen as the location for the monument because it is one of the cities nearest to Turkey’s closed border with Armenia.
“The Monument to Humanity should remain in its current place. It should be preserved. This is very painful; as an artist, what this sculpture is going through hurts my heart,” Aksoy said, adding that he was newly informed about the developments and very surprised to hear about the pending relocation of the monument.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sparked the current controversy around the monument on a visit to Kars earlier this month, when he described the statue as “freakish.” Saying the monument, which is placed on a high hill overlooking the city, threatened to overshadow historical sights such as the Seyyid Hasal El Harakani tomb and mosque, the prime minister ordered the statue’s demolition.
Following Erdogan’s statement, the Erzurum Committee for Preserving Cultural Assets decided to demolish the uncompleted sculpture, whose construction was halted in 2008. The Karshıyaka Municipality got in touch with the Kars Municipality and asked it not to destroy the monument and instead allow it to be moved to Izmir, where it will be placed on an empty hillside between the Mustafa Kemal neighborhood and Bulent Ecevit Avenue.
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