A top official from the Israeli government on Monday claimed that the country was in talks with 10 nations about moving their embassies to Jerusalem.
“We are in contact with at least 10 countries, some of them in Europe,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely [pictured above] told a radio channel, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Hotovely did not name the countries, but the state radio channel quoted Israeli diplomatic sources as saying that Honduras, the Philippines, Romania and South Sudan were among the states considering the move.
A day earlier, Guatemala had said that it would move its embassy to Jerusalem.
The minister’s statement comes just days after 129 countries at the United Nations General Assembly voted against the United States’ decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
“So far, we have only seen the beginning,” Hotovely said, and added that United States President Donald Trump’s official recognition would “trigger a wave” of such moves.
Trump’s announcement on December 6 broke with years of precedent on the sensitive subject and sparked bloody protests in the Israeli-Palestinian region. Israel considers Jerusalem an indivisible Capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the Capital of an independent Palestinian state to be East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and annexed.
At present, the embassies of all countries are in the Israeli commercial capital Tel Aviv.
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