Erdogan urges Muslims to challenge Israel by visiting Temple Mount

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urges more Muslims to visit the Temple Mount in a show of solidarity with Palestinians, according to Turkish media reports.

“We, as Muslims, should be visiting Al-Quds [Jerusalem] more often,” he says at the opening ceremony of the International Forum on al-Quds Waqf in Istanbul according to local news reports.

Erdogan says increased Muslim visits to the Jerusalem holy site “would be the greatest support to our brothers there.”

“Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us,” he adds.

“Both in terms of our religion and historical responsibility, Al-Quds and the fight of our Palestinian brothers for rights and justice is of great importance to us. We will keep making efforts for Quds to turn into a city of peace,” the president says.

Erdogan goes on to castigate Israel’s policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians as “racist” and discriminatory” and says the Israeli-Egyptian embargo on the Gaza Strip “has no place in humanity.”

He says the “establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of 1967” is the “only solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.