Iran Condemns US Plan to Move Embassy from Tel Aviv to Quds

Rasa - The Iranian foreign ministry deplored Washington's plans to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.

News ID: 427945

Date: 07 March 2017 - 00:07

RNA - "Such measures are not acceptable and are condemned," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi told reporters in his weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday.

"This is a complicated issue and there are contradictory and different views on it inside the US too," he added.

His remarks came after a recent visit by a number of US Congress members to Tel Aviv to study the issue.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has warned the United States against the relocation of the embassy, saying all American embassies in the Arab world would have to close in the face of popular Arab outrage that follows such an action.

PLO Secretary General Sa’eb Erekat said on December 19 that the potential move would deliver a death blow to any prospect of the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and would have his organization rescind all agreements with Tel Aviv.

Earlier, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations said he could make the life of US diplomats “miserable” should Trump move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds.

“If they try to attack us by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which is a violation of Security Council resolutions and a violation of Resolution 181,… it means they are showing belligerency against us,” Riyad Mansour said in November.

“Maybe I cannot have resolutions in the Security Council” — likely due to a US veto — “but I can make their lives miserable every day by precipitating a veto on my admission as a member state,” he said.

“Nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the UN to defend ourselves, and we have a lot of weapons in the UN,” Mansour added.

In September, Trump, who was the Republican presidential front-runner at the time, promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s undivided capital if he emerged triumphant in the US presidential election.

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