Australian PM says no decision has been made regarding Jerusalem embassy move

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says no decision has been made regarding moving the country’s embassy to Jerusalem.

He also downplays speculation the issue would damage efforts to forge a bilateral free trade deal with Indonesia.

Relations between Australia and the Muslim-majority Indonesia have been strained since Morrison announced last month that his government was considering following the US in recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, in what would be a sharp break in longstanding Australian policy.

When asked by Sky news in a interview that aired on Monday what he would tell Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo about the embassy move issue at upcoming regional summit, Morrison says, “I’ll update him that we are still working through the issue as a government, and the appropriate place to do that is internally, and we will continue to work through that respectfully.”

Morrison says he intended to re-state Australia’s “100% commitment” to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Widodo.

He urges Jakarta not to conflate issues of politics and trade, and said there was widespread support for the trade deal in Canberra.

“Australia is always going to look at these issues on their merits. We [do] not conflate other areas of non-related policy when it comes to these agreements,” he says.