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SYDNEY / JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Australia will consider recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv, the Australian prime minister said on Tuesday.
PHOTO FILE: On 14 October 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his office in Jerusalem. REUTERS / Amir Cohen
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most difficult obstacles to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel regards as its capital the entire city, including the annexed eastern sector after the 1967 Middle East war.
Last December, US President Donald Trump overturned decades of US policy by recognizing Jerusalem, enraging the Palestinians and upsetting the Arab world and its Western allies.
At the time, Australia had steadfastly refused to do the same, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the press that he was now "open-minded" while not changing his policy of supporting a Palestinian state.
"The orthodoxy that motivated this debate that said issues like that of the capital is taboo. I think we have to challenge that, "said Morrison.
"The interest of a two-state solution is that two nations coexist side by side," he added, declaring that he was open to the suggestion of the former ambassador Australian in Israel, Dave Sharma, that Australia would support West Jerusalem as the capital and eastern region. Jerusalem as Palestine.
"No decision has been made regarding the recognition of a capital or the movement of an embassy … but at the same time, what we are doing is simply open to this suggestion. "
The US embassy became the only foreign embassy in Jerusalem in May. Guatemala and Paraguay followed Washington a few days later and also moved their embassies, although Paraguay sent its mission back to Tel Aviv last month. Israel closed its embassy in Asuncion in response.
Palestinians, with the support of the international community, want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state they wish to establish in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Peace talks between the parties broke down in 2014.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to persuade other countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem.
Sharma, an ambassador to Israel between 2013 and 2017, is running Saturday as a candidate for Morrison's ruling Liberal Party in a crucial by-election in Sydney.
Morrison also said that Australia would reconsider its support for the Iranian nuclear deal, under which sanctions were lifted in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program "in order to determine whether current political parameters remain unaffected. adapted to the purpose ".
Trump decided in May to abandon the pact and restore economic sanctions imposed on Iran, including those aimed at forcing major OPEC oil customers to stop buying Iranian crude.
Reportage of Tom Westbrook and Wayne Cole in SYDNEY and Ori Lewis in JERUSALEM; Edited by Kevin Liffey and James Dalgleish
