{"id":35359,"date":"2017-12-07T11:55:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T06:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=35359"},"modified":"2017-12-07T11:55:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T06:55:45","slug":"u-n-european-union-criticize-trumps-jerusalem-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=35359","title":{"rendered":"U.N., European Union criticize Trump\u2019s Jerusalem announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROME Dec 07 (TNS):<\/strong>\u00a0The United Nations Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres spoke of his \u201cgreat anxiety.\u201d The European Union expressed \u201cserious concern.\u201d American allies like Britain, France, Germany and Italy all declared it a mistake. Pope Francis said, \u201cI cannot remain silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

A chorus of international leaders criticized the Trump administration\u2019s decision on Wednesday calling it a dangerous disruption that contravenes United Nations resolutions and could inflame one of the world\u2019s thorniest conflicts.<\/p>\n

Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres expressed alarm that the announcement would provoke new tensions in the Holy City, which is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of Mr. Trump\u2019s speech, in which he said the American Embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Mr. Guterres delivered what amounted to a diplomatic rebuke.<\/p>\n

Reading a statement outside the Security Council chambers at United Nations headquarters in New York, Mr. Guterres criticized \u201cany unilateral measures that would jeopardize the prospect of peace for Israelis and Palestinians,\u201d underscoring the administration\u2019s departure from decades of American policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerusalem is a final-status issue that must be resolved through direct negotiations between the two parties on the basis of the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, taking into account the legitimate concerns of both the Palestinian and the Israeli sides,\u201d Mr. Guterres said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this moment of great anxiety, I want to make it clear: There is no alternative to the two-state solution,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no Plan B.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Union\u2019s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, expressed concern about \u201cthe repercussions this may have on the prospect of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

She reiterated the bloc\u2019s position that Jerusalem should be a future capital of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, and that embassies should not be moved there until the city\u2019s final status was resolved. She cited a 1980 United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israel\u2019s attempted annexation of East Jerusalem as a violation of international law.<\/p>\n

She called on actors in the region \u201cto show calm and restraint in order to prevent any escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within a few hours of Mr. Trump\u2019s speech, eight countries on the 15-member Security Council \u2014 including some of America\u2019s closest allies \u2014 requested an emergency meeting to be held before the end of the week. Diplomats said it would most likely be scheduled tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Joakim Vaverka, political coordinator of Sweden\u2019s United Nations mission, said in a statement that the delegations of Bolivia, Britain, Egypt, France, Italy, Senegal, Sweden and Uruguay had sought the meeting, including a briefing by Mr. Guterres, \u201cin light of the statement today by the president of the United States regarding the status of Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics of the announcement said the change in policy removed any pretense that the United States is a neutral broker for peace. Palestinians and other Arabs in the region already view the Trump administration as leaning toward Israel\u2019s right-wing government. The change in American policy \u201cdestroys the peace process,\u201d said the Palestinian prime minister, Rami Hamdallah.<\/p>\n

Some of the United States\u2019 closest allies expressed apprehension.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain called Mr. Trump\u2019s decision \u201cunhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Emmanuel Macron of France, who was in Algeria on Wednesday meeting with the country\u2019s president and other figures, said in a news conference that the decision by Mr. Trump was \u201cregrettable\u201d and that \u201cFrance and Europe are committed to a two-state solution.\u201d He called on all parties to refrain from violence.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s chancellor, Angela Merkel, said through a spokesman that her government \u201cdoes not support this position, because the status of Jerusalem is to be resolved in the framework of a two-state solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy wrote on Twitter: \u201cJerusalem holy city, unique on earth. Its future will be defined within the framework of the peace process based on the two states, Israel and Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

In China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Geng Shuang, expressed support for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and urged all parties to the conflict to proceed cautiously. \u201cWhat we worry about is any potential flare-up of regional tensions,\u201d he said. \u201cThe status of Jerusalem is a complicated and sensitive issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, told reporters in Brussels, \u201cClearly this is a decision that makes it more important than ever that the long-awaited American proposals on the Middle East peace process are now brought forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

That process, led by Mr. Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has seemingly failed to get off the ground.<\/p>\n

Leaders in the region had already warned against the move. A statement from the royal palace of King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose kingdom is the custodian of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, emphasized that the city was critical to \u201cachieving peace and stability in the region and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was convening a summit meeting of the main Pan-Islamic body next week in Istanbul to discuss the American move and to show, as his spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara, \u201cjoint action among Islamic countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Kalin called the expected change a \u201cgrave mistake,\u201d adding that \u201cJerusalem is our honor, Jerusalem is our common cause, Jerusalem is our red line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran, unsurprisingly, condemned the change. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said at a conference in Tehran on Wednesday that it reflected the \u201cincompetence and failure\u201d of the American government.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROME Dec 07 (TNS):\u00a0The United Nations Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres spoke of his \u201cgreat anxiety.\u201d The European Union expressed \u201cserious concern.\u201d American allies like Britain, France, Germany and Italy all declared it a mistake. Pope Francis said, \u201cI cannot remain silent.\u201d A chorus of international leaders criticized the Trump administration\u2019s decision on Wednesday calling it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,964],"tags":[965,733],"class_list":["post-35359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-rome","tag-rome","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35361,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35359\/revisions\/35361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}