Officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry spoke with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, according to a report by the Hebrew-language Ynet site.
Foreign Ministry Director-General Yuval Rotem and Turkish Ambassador to Israel Kemal Okem spoke with Erdogan in what was defined as a “clarification call” held at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The conversation followed a vicious verbal attack on Monday by the Turkish president during a speech at the International Al-Quds Forum in Istanbul, in which Erdogan called for “thousands” of Muslims to flood the Temple Mount in solidarity with their Palestinian Authority “brothers” and claimed Jerusalem is “under occupation… an insult to us.” He also accused Israel of “massacres and cruelty” to Palestinian Authority Arabs and claimed the Israeli government is planning to “ban the call for morning prayers in mosques,” vowing he would “not allow the silencing of prayers from the heavens of Jerusalem.”
Israel responded to the slander Monday night by issuing a statement saying it “consistently protects total freedom of worship for Jewish, Muslims and Christians” and will continue to do so.