ByTZVI JOFFRE

Turkey has established a department dedicated to Jerusalem tourism in the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), the Turkish Yeni Safak newspaper reported on Saturday.

The Department of Umrah and Jerusalem visits will be in charge of tours to Jerusalem and umrah tours that stop in Jerusalem. The Diyanet has also prepared a special guide for Jerusalem tours with history about the city and important places to visit.

Umrah is a voluntary Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca similar to the Hajj pilgrimage that can be carried out at any time and has somewhat less requirements than Hajj. Umrah tours which stop in Jerusalem have been organized by Turkey since 2015.The Jerusalem tours include visits to sites in Hebron, Bethlehem and Jaffa as well, among other points of interest.
The Diyanet is a government body in charge of administering religious affairs in Turkey and runs thousands of institutions and projects around the world as well. The directorate has wide influence both within and outside the country, with control over very large assets. Its budget in 2019 was estimated by the Turkish statistics institute TÜIK to be around $1.87 billion and may have a total worth well above that, according to Deutsche Welle.
Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a session of the Turkish parliament that "Jerusalem is our city."

“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,” he said.

The Turkish president added that "we consider it an honor on behalf of our country and nation to express the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people on every platform, with whom we have lived for centuries. With this understanding, we will follow both the Palestinian cause, which is the bleeding wound of the global conscience, and the Jerusalem case to the end."

Erdoğan has repeatedly called for increased visits by Muslims to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa. At a speech marking the reopening of the Hagia Sophia as a mosque last year, he referred to the move as a "harbinger of the liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque," according to the Anadolu Agency.

Tobias Siegal contributed to this report.