President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with the 85th Armenian Patriarch of Turkey Sahak Maşalyan.
President Erdoğan, along with First Lady Emine Erdoğan, arrived at the gates of the Virgin Mary Church of the Armenian Patriarchate in Kumkapı, where a funeral ceremony was to be held for Markar Esayan, AK Party’s Member of Parliament from İstanbul, who had been receiving treatment in a hospital for a while.
From there, President Erdoğan went to the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey, established under the ordinance of Mehmed the Conqueror in 1461, with the 85th Armenian Patriarch of Turkey Sahak Maşalyan who welcomed him.
Accompanied by the First Lady along with the Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu, Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül, Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca, Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Presidency’s Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun, AK Party Deputy Chairman Numan Kurtulmuş, AK Party Deputy Chairman Mahir Ünal, Governor of Istanbul Ali Yerlikaya as well as AK Party Istanbul Provincial Head Bayram Şenocak, Erdoğan talked to Maşalyan for a while.
Following the talk that lasted for approximately half-an-hour, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to the Virgin Mary Church of the Armenian Patriarchate in which the religious ceremony for Esayan was to be held.
