ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed building a mosque in Cuba during a visit to the country.

Erdogan said he had suggested building a mosque similar to a 19th-century waterside mosque in Istanbul’s Ortakoy district, during talks with officials in the communist nation.

His comments were published on the presidential palace’s official web site on Thursday. Erdogan visited Cuba as part of a Latin American tour.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the Cuban response to the proposal was.

In November, Erdogan sparked controversy by claiming that Muslim sailors reached the Americas more than 300 years before explorer Christopher Columbus. Erdogan suggested that in his memoirs, Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque atop a hill on the coast of Cuba.