Hawzah News Agency (Rome, Italy) - Pope Francis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have condemned US decision to recognize  Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Israeli regime's capital and called for keeping the city's current status, Anadolu news agency said Monday.

Erdogan is on an official visit to the Vatican. He is the first Turkish president to visit the Vatican since 1959, while Pope Francis met with the Turkish president in 2014 during an apostolic visit.

Prior to his visit, Erdogan said that "no country has the right to make unilateral steps and ignore the international law on the issue, concerning thousands of people."

Last December, Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and instructed the US State Department to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, causing mass criticism across the world.

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