EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini speaks during a press conference on May 27, 2015, at EU headquarters in Brussels (AFP, File)
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, on Saturday, that strongly condemns the governments of Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic for blocking the release of a statement by the European Union (EU) which rejected US plans to officially open its Israeli embassy in Jerusalem, on Monday, May 14th.
The statement said, according to Ma’an, that the position of these three states contradicts the EU’s policy and its previous stances towards Jerusalem.
While Israel officially annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, according to Palestinians and the international community, the city has remained an intricate part of the occupied Palestinian territory and would be considered the capital of any future Palestinian state.
The ministry called the actions of the three states a “clear breach of international law, UN resolutions, the Geneva Conventions and human rights principles,” that “encourage the Israeli occupation authority to continue violating international law.”
The official ceremony for the relocation of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will be held on Monday, May 14 in the Jerusalem district of Arnona, and coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian people’s Nakba, or “catastrophe,” which marks the creation of Israel in which 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land.
The fate of Jerusalem has been a focal point of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, with numerous tensions arising over Israeli threats regarding the status of non-Jewish religious sites in the city, and the “Judaization” of East Jerusalem through settlement construction and mass demolitions of Palestinian homes.
(PNN archive image)
