Russia has refused to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite previously recognizing the west of the city as Israel’s capital. The announcement was made yesterday by Russia’s Ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, through the TASS news outlet.
Russia is not going to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Russian Ambassador to that country Anatoly Viktorov said in an interview with TASS.https://t.co/uyOwNq9lkR
— Lara Friedman? (@LaraFriedmanDC) February 7, 2019
Viktorov explained:
“The issue of transferring the Russian Embassy to Jerusalem is off the agenda. Russia is committed to the international legal framework concerning Jerusalem, including corresponding United Nations Security Council resolutions.”
Such resolutions condemn Israel’s actions in the Holy City. Jerusalem was declared to be a corpus separatum, to be run under an international administration, under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, but Jewish paramilitary groups still went ahead and took control of the west of the city in the 1948 “war of independence”; Israel then occupied the east during the Six Day War of 1967.
Russia says won’t move Israel embassy to al-Quds https://t.co/9KSD8MyGJI "RU Ambassador to IL, Anatoly Viktorov, told TASS on Thu that Moscow would not breach int'l law and UN resolutions on Jerusalem al-Quds." ??? LOVE IT !!!, MARK THOSE WORDS. % pic.twitter.com/ODCr2YNGtW
— Roy Lanek (@roy_lanek) February 8, 2019
Russia’s announcement will be greeted with frustration in Israel given that Moscow has previously recognized part of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In 2017, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “we [Russia] view West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Arutz Sheva reported, noting that it stopped short of naming the whole city as the country’s capital.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
