JERUSALEM: An Israeli cabinet minister said on Friday the phrasing of US President Donald Trump´s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel´s capital suggested an openness to eventual Palestinian control of part of the city, though he predicted Israel to oppose this.
Trump´s announcement reversed decades of US policy, angering the Arab world and alarming Western allies. But he also said Washington was not laying down a position on "final-status" issues including boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, which the two parties would have to decide in negotiations. Israel has long deemed Jerusalem its eternal, indivisible capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they seek on land Israel took in a 1967 war. Its eastern sector is laden with Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites that inject deep religious sensitivities into the dispute over sovereignty.
In his speech on Wednesday, Trump did not include words echoing Israel´s traditional description of Jerusalem. Asked about this, minister Zeev Elkin said: "I think that his leaving this out of the speech was premeditated. "He even hinted that borders in Jerusalem will also be set as a result of negotiations, which presupposes an option of partition," said Elkin, who holds the Jerusalem Affairs portfolio in Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu´s government. Elkin was referring to Trump´s caveat that the new US decision on Jerusalem did not constitute "taking a position of any final-status issues, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders"."Those questions are up to the parties involved," added Trump, who said Washington still wanted Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a "two-state solution" for peace. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed those remarks on Friday. "With respect to the rest of Jerusalem the president ... did not indicate any final status for Jerusalem. He was very clear that the final status, including the borders, would be left to the two parties to negotiate and decide," Tillerson told reporters in Paris.
12-09-2017, 08:21 AM
Israeli minister sees Trump ?hint? at Jerusalem partition with Palestinians
العرض العادي
