London: A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Al Jazeera that there are ‘no plans’ for the UK to move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. On Thursday, a spokesperson claimed the government had ‘no [such] intentions’ in response to an inquiry regarding the possibility of moving the embassy. Additionally, she said that the relocation plan had been considered by the previous administration, according to Al Jazeera. Despite Israel proclaiming Jerusalem as its capital, the UK has had its embassy there for many years, where the majority of other nations also hold their diplomatic missions.
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced in September that she was thinking about moving the embassy to Jerusalem. The Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Yair Lapid, applauded this comments. The Palestinian administration, Palestinian-supporting organisations, British religious leaders, and European foreign ministers, among others, all voiced their opposition to it.
Jerusalem continues to be the focal point of the protracted Israeli-Palestinian dispute, with the Palestinian Authority (PA) arguing that East Jerusalem, which Israel has been unlawfully occupying since 1967, should serve as the nation-capital, state’s according to Al Jazeera. Until the Palestinian question is addressed, there is a general consensus that Jerusalem should not be recognised as Israel’s capital. Under former President Donald Trump, the US acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by establishing its embassy there in 2018, breaking with its ten-year position.
Israel applauded the decision, but the Arab world and Western allies criticised it. Under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Theresa May, the UK stated at the time that it had no intentions to transfer its embassy and openly opposed the US decision. According to an Al Jazeera story, only the US, Kosovo, Honduras, and Guatemala have embassies there. Earlier, in the second week of October, Australia denied that its position had changed and insisted that West Jerusalem had remained recognised as Israel’s capital.
After The Guardian in the UK claimed that Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs had changed its position on recognising West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, The Times of Israel reported that Penny Wong, the country’s foreign minister, issued a denial. Wong rejected the idea that the previous administration had changed its mind. According to a representative for Wong, the government ‘continues to see the final status of Jerusalem as an issue to be settled as part of any peace discussions’.
But according to Wong through the spokeswoman, ‘the past government took the choice to accept West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel’ and ‘no decision to reverse that has been made by the administration’. If elected, the Labor Party had threatened to undo Canberra’s decision to recognise the western sector of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital made in 2018 under then-prime minister Scott Morrison of the Liberal Party of Australia.
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