Excerpt:
Thessaloniki mayor Yiannis Boutaris said that his city launched initiatives to build a mosque. Nearly 5,000 Muslims are living in Thessaloniki.
Boutaris visited Mayor Aziz Kocaoglu of Turkey's Aegean province of Izmir, and the two mayors decided to conclude the initiative which had been previously launched to declare Izmir and Thessaloniki as sister cities.
Kocaoglu wished that the required protocol for being sister cities would be signed as soon as possible. He said that the relations between Izmir and Thessaloniki would have a positive impact not only on Turkish-Greek relations but also on the relations in Balkans and the Mediterranean.