BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Russian President
Vladimir Putin recently sent a letter to Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett urging the occupying regime to hand over control of contested church property in the Old City of Al-Quds, the Ynet website reported Monday.
Moscow has for years been seeking to secure the Alexander’s Courtyard church compound, but a recent court decision set back its plans by nullifying recognition of its claims to the complex, located near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The report said the letter indicates the importance that Moscow attaches to the matter, and that Al-Quds officials are worried the subject could exacerbate tensions with Russia, already on the rise over its war with Ukraine.
Last month, the Al-Quds district court annulled a decision giving the Russian government control of Alexander’s Courtyard.
Ynet said the letter was revealed by Sergei Stepashin, a former Russian prime minister who is chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, which oversees Russian properties in the region. Stepashin is on a visit to Occupied Palestine and brought up the matter during a gathering at Sergei’s Courtyard, another property that was handed over to Russia a decade ago, at a time of similar claims to ownership.
Stepashin said that Russia provided all of the necessary paperwork to show it is the rightful owner of Alexander’s Courtyard, but then the Ukraine conflict started and, in the meantime, Israeli authorities “decided to not decide.”
Stepashin said Russia will apply diplomatic pressure if necessary to get what it wants, Ynet said.
Russian analyst Alex Tenser has assessed that the occupying regime of Israel is wary of handing over the property at a time when Russia is being sanctioned by many Western countries, due to its invasion of Ukraine, the website noted.
The Al-Quds District Court verdict was given following a petition by the Orthodox Palestine Society of the Holy Land, which owned the property until last year.
In 1859, Czar Alexander II purchased the land on which Alexander’s Court — also known as the Alexander Nevsky Church — was built. Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the area was under the control of the Russian Imperial government.
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved giving Alexander’s Courtyard to Russia in 2020. The move was seen as a goodwill gesture following Russia’s release of Naama Issachar, a young Israeli woman who was imprisoned after a small quantity of marijuana was found in her backpack during a layover in Moscow.
After the Russian government was registered as the rightful owner of the church, the Land Registry Commissioner responded to a string of appeals against the move, explaining that the Russian Federation had been recognized by international bodies and by the Zionist regime as a “continuing state” of the Russian Empire.