Istanbul conquest counter-demonstration held in Greece

ATHENS (AA) – As about a million people in Turkey attended Sunday’s celebrations for the anniversary of Istanbul’s conquest, a much smaller group held counter-demonstrations in the Greek capital Athens.

A group of 200 people affiliated with the far-right Golden Dawn party gathered at Metropolitan Square in Athens and chanted anti-Turkey slogans.

Golden Dawn members of parliament and some members of the far-right National People's Front party from Southern Cyprus participated in the demonstration.

After a speech by Nikolaos G. Michaloliakos, Golden Dawn’s founder and leader, the demonstrators moved toward Syntagma Square.

On May 29, 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II conquered Istanbul, then called Constantinople, from where the Byzantines had ruled the Eastern Roman Empire for more than 1,000 years. The conquest transformed the city, once the heart of the Byzantine realm, into the capital of the new Ottoman Empire.