Greece asks Turkey to return the former status of a museum to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul - an architectural monument that Ankara converted into a mosque, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias noted on Wednesday.

Dendias said that the issue of the full exercise of cultural rights and the preservation of cultural heritage is particularly important for Greece.

According to him, all states are obliged, regardless of their political, economic, and cultural systems, to refrain from changing cultural monuments statuses. The prior consent of the communities concerned and prior information for all stakeholders, including the relevant UN bodies such as UNESCO, is an indispensable precondition, he added.