Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Thursday that Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem still belongs to Turkey.

In a speech marking the opening of the fall session of Turkey’s parliament, covered by Turkish media, Erdoğan began with harsh criticism of Armenia for the armed conflict that broke out this week with Azerbaijan and their mutual claims to the Nagorno-Karabakh region. However, his comments shifted closer to home and he made the surprising remark that Jerusalem still belongs to Turkey.

“The Jerusalem issue is not a geopolitical problem for us. Jerusalem is our city, a city from us,” Erdogan said, referring to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War One.

“In this city [Jerusalem] that we had to leave in tears during the first world war, it is still possible to encounter traces of the Ottoman resistance,” Erdogan said. “We accept it an honor on behalf of our country and nation to express the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people on every platform.”

The Ottoman Empire controlled Jerusalem for 400 years until its defeat at the hands of the Western allies who divided up the former empire, with many of its former provinces becoming independent Arab countries. During the war the Ottomans also carried out the Armenian genocide, murdering some 1.5 million Christian Armenians – enmity that remains and led to Erdogan’s condemnation of Armenia.

As I have posted before we are seeing the prophecy of Daniel 8 developing, with Turkey as the goat nation beginning to exert its desire to re-establish the Ottoman Empire. The Ram nation Iran is already pushing west, north, and south exactly as prophesied and it is only a matter of time before Turkey crushes Iran.

“And the goat ( Turkey, Sunni) had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram (Iran, Shia) with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.” Daniel 8:6-7

So many Biblical prophecies of the end times are manifesting now that it is obvious to most Bible believing Christians that we are living in the last days. Recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus told us that in the “last days” there would be a great falling away (apostasy) in the church. Many of the institutional churches now accept homosexuality, gay marriage and other heresies. Other end times signs such as people will be lovers of self, lawlessness will abound, pestilence, famine and other so called natural disasters are all evident. Jesus said all of these things must take place before He comes to take His church to heaven prior to God pouring out His wrath on a world that totally rejects God the Father and Jesus, His Son.