Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened the Turkish parliament's legislative session on Thursday with a long speech that addressed the city of Jerusalem and the Palestinian people, in which he stated: "Jerusalem is our city."
Erdoğan referred to the Ottoman Empire's rule over Jerusalem, which lasted four centuries (1517-1917), to justify his claim. “In this city, which 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,” Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan mentioned that Jerusalem's walls that still stand today, as well as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City, were reconstructed and restored by Suleiman the Magnificent, who reigned over the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566. READ MORE
