PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday called for the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and ensuring Palestinians’ freedom of worship in Jerusalem in line with the order that existed before the Israeli occupation of 1967.
Abbas was taking part in the reopening of Moscow’s Central Mosque on Wednesday, alongside Russian president Putin and the presidents of Turkey and Kazakhstan.
‘The Israeli systematic aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the first qiblah and the third of the holy sites in Islam in occupied East Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Palestine, could not serve peace, coexistence and tolerance among faiths and peoples,’ said Abbas during the inauguration ceremony of the newly reconstructed central Moscow mosque.
‘On the contrary, it provides a pretext for worldwide extremists who are exploiting religions for terrorising humanity,’ he added. During his speech, Abbas stressed that Palestinian Muslims have the right to pray inside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which belongs solely to Muslims, and slammed Israeli measures severely restricting their access to the Mosque compound and freedom of worship.
Abbas hailed the newly inaugurated central Moscow mosque as an event that conveys a clear message that reflects Russia’s spirit of tolerance and coexistence and manifests Russia’s will to openness and intercultural and interfaith dialogue in a spirit of mutual respect for diverse religious beliefs.
Abbas also hailed the inauguration of the mosque as an event that conveys a message of respect for the Arab and Islamic countries as well as Islam. Putin described the mosque’s inauguration as ‘a big event in the life of all the Muslims of Russia’ and highlighted cynical attempts to exploit religions for political goals.
‘Attempts are being made to cynically exploit religious beliefs for political goals. We see what is going on in the Middle East where terrorists from the so-called Islamic State are compromising a great world religion, compromising Islam, spreading hatred, killing people, including priests, and barbarically destroying objects of world culture,’ stated Putin. ‘Their ideology is based on lies and blatant perversion of Islam,’ he added.
Putin and Abbas were joined by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the ceremonial opening of Moscow’s new main mosque. Abbas started an official visit to Moscow on Tuesday, when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a wide range of bilateral and regional issues, including the recent clashes over the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, settlers’ terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians and ongoing settlement construction.
‘It is very important for us to hear your assessments, as there are many important events happening in the world right now for both our countries and the region itself,’ Abbas was quoted as stating. Abbas reportedly consulted with the Russian leader about the steps to be taken by the Palestinian leadership during the upcoming session of the UN General assembly.
‘After today’s meeting we will go to the UN, so it is necessary for us to consult with you about the possible steps which may be made at the UN,’ Abbas added. Putin reportedly expressed his happiness that he had the opportunity to meet with Abbas to discuss such issues, including the situation in Syria.
Discussing the situation in the mosque compound, Abbas reportedly said: ‘But what’s even worse is that Israel strives to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews. Such a division would mean changing the time and location for prayer: Muslims would pray at one time in one location, while Jews would pray at a different time in a different location.’
Discussing the situation in Syria, Abbas said: ‘Both our countries are concerned about the situation in Syria. We think that an important moment has come, and the political solution to the problem is close.’ The mosque, the second largest in Russia, can accommodate up to 10,000 followers. It was built with funds from many Muslim countries.
It is estimated that about two million Muslims currently live in Moscow. They come from the North Caucasus republics of southern Russia, Azerbaijan and the former Soviet states in Central Asia. President Mahmoud Abbas discussed joint Palestinian and Russian efforts toward extracting energy resources in the occupied Palestinian territory during talks with his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Tuesday, the Palestinian ambassador to Russia said.
Ambassador Abdel Hafiz Nofal said that Abbas and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the potential involvement of Russian companies in the extraction of gas and oil in the territory. Nofal said that a senior Palestinian delegation would be sent to Russia in the coming weeks to further examine the possibility of cooperation.
The delegation would also seek to restructure the Palestinian energy sector more closely on Russia’s model, he said. The ambassador added that Palestinians may also look into importing energy resources from Russia, with the aim of alleviating economic dependency on Israel created through decades of military occupation.
In recent years, energy resources have been discovered off the coast of the Gaza Strip and potentially in small pockets in and around the occupied West Bank. According to a report from Palestinian rights group Al-Haq last year, there are ‘potentially eight gas fields off the coast of Gaza, one gas field on the border of the West Bank, and potentially two or more oil fields bordering the northern and southern boundaries of the Gaza Strip.’
The report said there may also be a cluster of gas and oil deposits around the Dead Sea, as well as one potential oil field near Qalqilya and another near Hebron. However, the report noted the dependence of Palestinians under occupation on Israel’s energy sector, as well as Israel’s efforts to prevent Palestinians ‘from developing their natural gas resources’.
Earlier this year, a Palestinian company, the Palestine Power Generation Company, was set to buy $1.2 billion worth of natural gas from an Israeli-American partnership that is extracting fuel from the vast Leviathan reservoir off the coast of Israel. The deal would have supplied gas to a future Palestinian power station in the northern West Bank for up to 20 years, although it was terminated after it came under intense pressure from a range of Palestinians and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists.
The company later said it would seek Palestinian natural gas for the future power plant instead. During Tuesday’s talks, the Palestinian and Russian leaders also discussed recent political developments in the occupied Palestinian territory, including heightened tensions in occupied East Jerusalem, which has seen fierce clashes in recent days.
Following meetings with Arab ambassadors to Russia, the Patriarch of Moscow, and the Russian Prime Minister, Abbas was scheduled to leave Moscow on Friday for New York to attend the UN General Assembly and the raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN headquarters. Russia, which is widely involved in Middle East politics, has long sought to maintain good relations with both Palestine and Israel.
