A large monument in the eastern city of Kars that was harshly criticized by the prime minister will be relocated to the Karsiyaka district of the western city of Izmir, a municipal representative said, Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review reports.

“We were looking for a special sculpture for Karsiyaka. We decided to bring the ‘Monument to Humanity’ to Izmir when we heard it was going to be demolished,” Karsiyaka Municipality Press Consultant Sedat Sozeri, who visited the monument in Kars on January 25 along with a nine-person committee,” the source says.

“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 daily reads.

“We never considered whether the monument is aesthetic or not, beautiful or ugly. We don’t want discussions, we needed it and we will take it,” Sozeri said.