Turkey to erect Ottoman memorial in Jerusalem: Palestinians
JERUSALEM - Turkey`s government is to erect a memorial for its fallen soldiers from the Ottoman era near Islam`s third holiest site in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a senior official said on Thursday.
"We allowed the Turkish government to build a memorial for the Ottoman soldiers in Jerusalem," Azzam al-Khattib, the head of the Waqf which oversees Muslim religious sites, told AFP.
The memorial will be built outside the walls of Jerusalem`s Old City, several metres east of the bitterly contested holy site known to Muslims as the Al-Haram Al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, Judaism`s holiest site.
The Turkish government made the request several months ago, and was allocated 120 square metres (1,300 square feet) near a Muslim cemetery outside the Lion`s Gate, according to Khattib.
The project still requires the green light from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert`s office, but an official at the office told AFP he was "unaware" of any Turkish request.
And a spokesman for Jerusalem`s municipality said that "no official request has so far been put forward by the Turkish government."
The Ottoman empire ruled Jerusalem from its capital in Istanbul for 400 years between 1517 and 1917, when the British army led by General Edmund Allenby captured the city during World War I.
Israel occupied east Jerusalem and the Old City during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it. The Palestinians want to make Jerusalem the capital of their future state.
Turkey mediated between Israel and the Waqf after a controversial construction project near Al-Haram Al-Sharif sparked a wave of protest across the Muslim world earlier this year.
rb/jk/hc
11/04/2007 12:06 GMT
