Turkey’s President Recept Tayyip Erdogan says his country will soon be able to open an embassy in “East Jerusalem.” (At present the Turkish Embassy is located in Tel Aviv.)
He made the statement after calling on world leaders at the emergency summit held last Wednesday in Istanbul by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of “the State of Palestine” in response to the Dec. 6 decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“We here rise up to state together and in a clear unambiguous manner that Al Quds (Jerusalem) has been, will be eternally the capital of the state of Palestine,” Erdogan said from the podium.
Erdogan called Israel an “occupying power and a terror state” – a view Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the “Kremlin does not share” – and he called the decision by America’s president “provocative and unjust.”
Last week, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas “promised to act quickly to provide property for Lebanon in East Jerusalem,” according to a tweet by Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.
But since Abbas owns no property in Jerusalem, and cannot even enter the city without a permit, that would be somewhat of a stretch, akin to any fantasy he might have about giving away real estate in Gaza.