Inspectors will arrive in Jerusalem

Turks will observe construction on the Temple Mount

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert allowed a team of Turkish experts to inspect construction work on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This promise was made in Ankara during negotiations with the head of the Turkish government, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Israeli prime minister tried to convince his Turkish counterpart that the builders do not plan to approach the Muslim shrines of the Temple Mount. He provided Erdogan with a construction plan and photographs of the area. The Turkish prime minister treated the information provided to him with a grain of salt. He told reporters that Olmert had failed to convince him that the mosques were not under threat. Now Turkish inspectors will have to verify the truth of the Israeli Prime Minister’s words on the spot.

The Israelis consider it necessary to restore the passage leading to the Temple Year. However, construction work near the Al-Aqsa and Qubat al-Sakhra mosque complex in Jerusalem was perceived by many Muslims as an “encroachment on Islamic shrines.” Suspicions arose that the real work in the Old City was not the strengthening of the ancient wall, but the destruction of Islamic shrines and the construction in their place of a Jewish temple, destroyed in 70 AD. All that remains of the ancient temple is the Western Wall, or the Wailing Wall, the most important Jewish shrine of our days.

The Israelis, having gained control over all of Jerusalem after the 1967 Arab war, left the Temple Mount under the care of the Muslim property administration. However, in right-wing extremist Jewish circles there is heated debate about the idea that the mountain should be taken away and a Jewish temple re-built on it.

Ankara is the main ally of the Jewish state in the Muslim world. Türkiye was the first Islamic country to recognize the State of Israel and already established diplomatic relations with it in 1949. Olmert managed to enlist Turkey's support in the fight against Iran's nuclear program. At a press conference, Erdogan said that Iran's nuclear program is a "great concern in Ankara" and stressed that "there is no question of enriching uranium for military purposes."

An important topic of the negotiations was the issue of transporting oil and gas through the Mediterranean Sea.Israel plans to build a 610 km gas pipeline connecting the Turkish port of Ceyhan and the Israeli port city of Ashkelon. In 2011, it may begin supplying Russian gas, which goes to Turkey via the Blue Stream gas pipeline. A Vremya Novostey source in Olmert’s delegation believes that “it was to discuss oil and gas cooperation that the prime minister went to Turkey,” while understanding that he would be under pressure on the issue of construction on the Temple Mount.

Maria GRISHINA, Dmitry DUBOV, Jerusalem