Turkey will open an embassy in East Jerusalem, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said, days after leading calls at a summit of Muslim leaders for the world to recognise it as the capital of Palestine.
ADVERTISEMENTPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey wants to open an embassy in East Jerusalem, following a decision by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
It was not clear how he would carry out the move, as Israel controls all of Jerusalem and calls the city its indivisible capital. Palestinians want the capital of a future state they seek to be in East Jerusalem, which Israel took in a 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognised internationally.**
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The Muslim nation summit was a response to U.S. President Donald Trump's December 6 decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
His move broke with decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that the city's status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Meanwhile, thousands of people rallied in capital Ankara and the mainly Kurdish southeast city of Diyarbakir on Sunday to protest the U.S. move on Jerusalem and the ensuing clashes in the region.
Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam's third holiest shrine as well as Judaism's revered Western Wall and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.