Saudi king: Palestinians have right to East Jerusalem as capital
Making no mention of city’s western areas, Salman’s remarks in Riyadh coincide with Islamic summit in Turkey addressing Trump’s recognition of capital
Palestinians have the right to East Jerusalem as their capital, Saudi King Salman said Wednesday, echoing calls at an Islamic summit in Istanbul from which he had stayed away.
“The kingdom has called for a political solution to resolve regional crises, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue and the restoration of the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights, including the right to establish their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the king said.
Salman did not spell out whether that meant Saudi support for an Israeli capital in West Jerusalem.
The king’s remarks came at the opening of the annual Consultative Council meeting in Riyadh, as the world’s main pan-Islamic body held an emergency summit in Istanbul in response to the Trump administration’s recognition last week of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and its declaration of intent to move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.
Salman renewed his condemnation of Trump’s decision, saying it “represents an extreme bias against the rights of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem that have been guaranteed by international resolutions.”
Meanwhile in Istanbul, addressing the special conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation hosted by Turkey, King Abdullah ll of Jordan rejected any attempts to change the status of Jerusalem or its holy sites.
“All violence… is a result of a failure to find a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Abdullah heads the Hashemite dynasty, the formal custodian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. Jordan is home to a large Palestinian population.
صور: من مشاركة جلالة الملك عبدالله الثاني في أعمال القمة الاستثنائية لمنظمة التعاون الإسلامي في #اسطنبول #الأردن #القدس
Photos: From His Majesty King Abdullah II’s participation in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s Extraordinary Summit#Istanbul #Jordan #Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/VCAn8SeND8
— RHC (@RHCJO) December 13, 2017
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the gathering that all Muslim nations should work together to defend the rights of Palestinians against the Trump administration’s decision.
Accusing Israel of stoking regional tensions, he called on Muslim countries to resolve their internal disputes through dialogue and to unite against the Jewish state.
He also used his speech to make a thinly veiled jab at the US and Israel’s Arab allies, notably Tehran’s arch-rival Saudi Arabia.
“Some countries in our region are in cooperation with the United States and the Zionist regime in determining the fate of Palestine,” he said.
His speech came after a seething address by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who vowed the US would have no future peacemaking role.
Abdullah, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait and the presidents of Afghanistan and Indonesia all joined the summit.
In an address last Wednesday from the White House, Trump defied worldwide warnings and insisted that after repeated failures to achieve peace, a new approach was long overdue.
He described his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the seat of Israel’s government as merely based on reality.
The move was hailed by Netanyahu and by leaders across much of the Israeli political spectrum, and condemned by the vast majority of the international community. Trump stressed that he was not specifying the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city, and called for no change in the status quo at the city’s holy sites.