President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey repeated a pledge Saturday to conquer Jerusalem during a speech in Mardin, Turkey, raising eyebrows and signaling new tensions in the relationship with Israel.
It was not the first time that Erdoğan has made such claims: in 2020, he said that “Jerusalem is our city,” referring to the Ottoman Empire that collapsed after the First World War.
The Times of Israel reported at the time:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday implied that Jerusalem belongs to Turkey, referring to the Ottoman Empire’s control over the city for much of the modern era.
“In this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance. So Jerusalem is our city, a city from us,” he told Turkish lawmakers during a major policy speech in Ankara. “Our first qibla…
