  This is a continuation of a previous joint work with Robert Weston on the
quantum group invariant XXZ spin-chain (math-ph/0703085). The previous results
on quasi-Hermiticity of this integrable model are briefly reviewed and then
connected with a new construction of an inner product with respect to which the
Hamiltonian and the representation of the Temperley-Lieb algebra become
Hermitian. The approach is purely algebraic, one starts with the definition of
a positive functional over the Temperley-Lieb algebra whose values can be
computed graphically. Employing the Gel'fand-Naimark-Segal (GNS) construction
for C*-algebras a self-adjoint representation of the Temperley-Lieb algebra is
constructed when the deformation parameter q lies in a special section of the
unit circle. The main conjecture of the paper is the unitary equivalence of
this GNS representation with the representation obtained in the previous paper
employing the ideas of PT-symmetry and quasi-Hermiticity. An explicit example
is presented.
