Diplomacy Newsline

US official meets Bartolomeos in Istanbul:

ANK - TDN with AFP

U.S. State Department official Karen Hughes met with Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartolomeos yesterday in Istanbul at the end of a three-country regional tour, sources from her delegation said.

No statement was issued after the meeting as Hughes, the newly appointed U.S. 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 of the United States, battered by the war in Iraq, in the Muslim world.

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

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

Washington, along with Greece, wants Turkey to reopen the school. The Turkish government has said on several occasions that it is looking into ways of allowing the school to reopen.

Improving the rights of non-Muslim communities is a key requirement that 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.