Czech president wants to follow US on Jerusalem embassy move

The president of the Czech Republic on Thursday praised US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, saying his country may soon follow suit.

“It makes me truly happy because, as I said during my visit to Israel four years ago, I would appreciate the transfer of the Czech Embassy to Jerusalem, and had it happened, we would have been the first to do so,” said Milos Zeman. “Now we may sooner or later follow the United States. In any case, it is still better than nothing.”

“This is a step taken to proclaim clearly the self-confident policy of the United States, and this is very good,” he added.

Following Trump’s speech on Wednesday, in which he recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Czech Republic said it recognises the pre-1967 West Jerusalem as the country’s capital. It said, however, it will only consider moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the city after talks with regional partners.

Trump made no distinction between East or West Jerusalem in his declaration.
“The Czech Republic currently, before the peace between Israel and Palestine is signed, recognises Jerusalem to be in fact the capital of Israel in the borders of the demarcation line from 1967,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

However, the ministry noted that “the Czech Republic together with other EU member states, following the EU Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions, considers Jerusalem to be the future capital of both states, meaning the State of Israel and the future State of Palestine. The Ministry can start considering moving of the Czech embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem only based on results of negotiations with key partners in the region and in the world.”

Some Israeli diplomats are concerned over possible momentum developing for countries to recognize only West Jerusalem, as Russia did earlier this year and the Czechs did Wednesday.

Israel has declared all of Jerusalem its undivided capital, but the international community had never recognized the move, saying the city’s status needed to be determined via final status negotiations with the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state.

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