The Palestinian official in charge of matters concerning Jerusalem has secured the Turkish government's agreement to open centuries-old Ottoman archives to Palestinian legal experts searching for records of land ownership in the disputed Holy City.
The Palestinians are seeking to prove their ownership of at least 60 per cent of properties in the western sector of the city, captured by the Israelis in 1948, as well as land and buildings in the eastern sector, seized in 1967.
Mr Faisal Husseini is determined to prepare proofs from the Ottoman era and the period of the British mandate before final-status negotiations with Israel. Two years ago he told The Irish Times that negotiations on the status of the Holy City "will include west as well as east Jerusalem".
The city was made a corpus separatum under international administration by the United Nations in its partition plan of 1947. Israel's two stage occupation and annexation of the city has not been recognised by the international community.
Mr Husseini chose to go to Ankara at a delicate moment, before the ongoing four-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian autonomous areas by the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Ismail Cem. As Turkey has come under severe criticism in the Arab world for strengthening its defence co-operation with Israel while the peace process remains deadlocked, Mr Husseini clearly expected a positive response.
Having gained access to the Ottoman files, the Palestinians will have to hire Turkish scholars both familiar with the huge archive and with the Turkish language as written in the Arabic script in order to make use of the land records.
A senior Palestinian official said yesterday that Mr Husseini had already obtained land records from the British mandatory period (1919-48).
Mr Husseini's independent fund-raising for Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem and his drive to assert Palestinian property claims in Jewish West, as well as Arab East Jerusalem, have put him at odds with the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, who has played down the fundamental Palestinian-Israeli dispute over the Holy City. Although Mr Arafat's deputy, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, agreed four years ago with Israel's former deputy foreign minister, Mr Yossi Beilin, that the Palestinians would establish their official capital at the village of Abu Dis on the outskirts of East Jerusalem rather than in East Jerusalem itself, Mr Husseini has never accepted this deal. He continues to insist that a future Palestinian state should make its capital in the eastern sector of the city, considered by Israel as part of its exclusive, eternal capital.
Palestinian analysts say Mr Arafat would like to drop Mr Husseini from his cabinet in the coming reshuffle and replace him with a more malleable person. Such a move, however, would be highly unpopular among Palestinian citizens of Jerusalem and the West Bank. For Mr Husseini has been dubbed "Mr Jerusalem", as Mr Arafat has "Mr Palestine".
The removal of "Mr Jerusalem" by "Mr Palestine" would also anger the Arab world at large which strongly supports Mr Husseini's campaign to re-establish Arab and Islamic sovereignty over East Jerusalem and its Muslim holy places.