Israel, once a province of the Ottoman Empire, would be “ours once again,” said Turkey’s Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci in a speech at an AK Party Corum Provincial Advisory Council Meeting on June 6.

“Just as in the past, those lands will be ours once again. God willing, they will come under our sovereignty and dominion once more. Because we have a global leader like Recep Tayyip Erdogan at our helm. A world leader,” he said.

Ciftci, who served as governor of the Turkish city of Corum and later the city of Erzurum, also expressed his desire to rule over Jerusalem. “When I was a governor, I had a supplication to the Almighty: ‘My Lord, one day grant me the governorship of Jerusalem,’” he said.

His comments drew a harsh response from Defense Minister Israel Katz.

“To the Turkish Interior Minister who threatens and dreams of ruling Jerusalem, I say this: Jerusalem is not Constantinople, and the State of Israel is not the crumbling Crusader Empire, but a strong and determined nation that has proven its ability to defend itself against any threat,” he posted to X on Sunday.

“Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years and will continue to be the capital of Israel forever, while the Ottoman Empire that you and Erdogan dream of collapsed and will never return.

“It’s a shame you haven’t learned anything from the legacy of Ataturk, who worked to turn Turkey into a modern state, and yet you are working to return Turkey to an era of darkness and backwardness,” the defense minister concluded.

Turkish-Israel relations derailed following the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when the Turkish ship MV Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla of six ships, attempted to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. After a brief thawing period, which saw a visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Turkey, relations again collapsed in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and the subsequent Gaza war.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rhetoric toward the Jewish state has become increasingly hostile. Most recently, he condemned Israel’s “piracy and banditry” when it stopped another flotilla heading toward Gaza. He said on May 14, that Israel is “trampling on humanity’s shared values.” On March 30, 2025, during a prayer service to mark the end of Ramadan, he said: “May Allah, for the sake of his name … destroy and devastate Zionist Israel.”