Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan wants a new mosque on Istanbul’s Çamlýca Hill. Despite concerns by architets and even religious circles, the PM has insisted that "The beauty of the [planned] mosque on Çamlýca Hill is not that obvious on the model. But it will be very beautiful, trust me". This, reported daily Hurriyet, he told a group of journalists aboard a plane en route to the Spanish capital of Madrid from Ankara on November 27.

"This giant mosque in Çamlýca was designed so as to be visible from all parts of Istanbul" Erdoðan had said when he first proposed the new mosque, last May.

Üsküdar Municipality and a mosque-building association had actually launched competition for the mosque project soon after Erdoðan’s announcement, setting a grand prize of 300,000 Turkish Liras for the winning design.

62 projects were sent in. The winning project proposed a 15,000-square-meter plot to be used for the mosque which will have the capacity to hold approximately 30,000 people.

The Prime Minister has also another mosque in mind, in Taksim Square. Considering the problems of a city like Istanbul, clearly the PM has not his priorities clear...