Excerpt:
It will cost the cash-strapped Greek government, which is cutting pay, raising taxes and slashed pensions for workers, pensioners and the poor, some 846,000 euros, about $1.1 million, to build an official mosque in Athens for the city's Muslim population.
The design, however, is slated to have a modern look and not that of Ottoman mosques with minarets, the newspaper Ta Nea reported, adding that all that's needed for the project to begin for the Transportation Ministry to begin the bidding procedures for construction.
The government agreed in September of 2012 to go ahead with the plans after an offer from the Turkish government to pay for it was rejected by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and opposed by the Muslim community which wanted the Greek state to undertake it.