By Humeyra Atilgan Buyukovali
ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey’s president on Monday made an appeal for more Muslims to visit Jerusalem in support of Palestinians.
"We, as Muslims, should be visiting Al-Quds [Jerusalem] more often," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during the opening ceremony of the International Forum on Al-Quds Waqfs, held in Istanbul.
Nearly 600,000 Americans, 400,000 Russians and 300,000 French citizens visited Jerusalem in 2015, Erdogan said.
However, although Turkey had the highest numbers of visitors to Jerusalem from among Muslim countries -- at around 26,000 -- Erdogan asked why “hundreds of thousands” of Muslims should not also visit.
The president said such visits "would be the greatest support to our brothers there".
Speaking about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, Erdogan said permanent peace in the wider region would be impossible “without a fair solution to the Palestinian issue".
Describing Israeli practices as "racist" and "discriminatory," he said the embargo on Gaza by Israel "has no place in humanity".
"Here is the only solution," he stressed: "The establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of 1967."
Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967. It unilaterally annexed the entire city in 1980, claiming it as its “eternal and undivided” capital in a move never recognized by the international community.