Mecca

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan discussed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a recent escalation at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in a phone call on July 20. 

Erdoğan stressed that it was unacceptable that there were restrictions at the entrance of the mosque, also known as Haram al-Sharif, state-run Anadolu Agency quoted anonymous presidential sources as saying. 

Iran will be allowed to set up temporary consulates in Saudi Arabia during the hajj pilgrimage despite the absence of diplomatic ties between the two rivals, the foreign ministry in Tehran said on July 4.

Saudi security forces shot dead a wanted man in the Muslim holy city of Mecca on Friday and arrested several others, Reuters reported.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia promoted his 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, to be next in line to the throne on Wednesday, further empowering a young, activist leader at a time when the kingdom is struggling with low oil prices, a rivalry with Iran and conflicts across the Middle East.

Two reporters working for state-broadcaster TRT World were briefly detained in Saudi Arabia during Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu's visit to the country. The reporters identified as Pakistani citizen Hasan Abdullah and cameraman Nihat Yayman were detained at the hotel they were staying in Mecca where they were reporting on the minister's visit.

The Prophet Muhammed's sacred cloak made of linen, cotton and silk, a centuries-old garment pressed down flat inside a glass exhibition case in an Istanbul mosque, draws a long queue of men and women.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will visit Mecca on June 16 and meet Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud as part of Turkey's efforts to calm down the ongoing crisis between Qatar and other Gulf countries. 

Çavuşoğlu will share "Turkey's sincere opinion" regarding the crisis during his visit to Mecca, he said in Kuwait on June 16 after talks in Qatar on June 15.

The crisis between Qatar and some Arab countries should be resolved "through peace and dialogue," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said June 14.

The terrorist attack in London shows us 3 things - an unseen by now fierce of the bombers in Europe, the spectacular failure of the Secret Intelligence Service, who have received multiple signals for one of them and the problem with radicalization of people who are born and grew up in Europe, but not who came after that.

The dramatic arrival of Da’ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed — and horrified — by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia’s ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, “Don’t the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?”