New York (December 21, 2017): The United Nations General Assembly has passed the resolution against the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel capital with land sliding majority calling it to withdraw from its decision.
A total 128 members including Pakistan voted in favour while only nine voted against the move, while 35 members abstained voting process. Seven countries — Guatemala, Honduras, Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and the Marshall Islands — joined Israel and the United States in opposing the measure.
President Donald Trump had warned ahead of the vote in the 193-nation assembly that “we’re watching” and threatened reprisals against countries backing the measure, which reaffirms that the status of Jerusalem must be resolved through negotiations.
Click Play Button to Watch this Video
Reactions:
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Maleeha Lodhi in her remarks said Pakistan will continue to support Palestinians as support to Palestinian cause is the pillar of our foreign policy.
She said an independent, contiguous Palestinian state with its borders prior to 1967 and al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital is the only solution of enduring peace in Middle East.
Maleeha Lodhi said the UN is the only forum which is the hope of Palestinians for their independence.
In her reaction US ambassador in UN Ms Haley said “no vote in the United Nations will make any difference” on the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem, which will go ahead because “it is the right thing to do.”
Ms Haley said the vote “will make a difference on how Americans look at the UN and on how we look at countries who disrespect us in the UN, and this vote will be remembered.”
She said “the United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very right of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.”
“We will remember it when we are called upon once again to make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations,” she says. “And we will remember when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said “the vote is a victory for Palestine.”
“We will continue our efforts in the United Nations and at all international forums to put an end to this occupation and to establish our Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Mr Rdainah said.
On December 6, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and announced to shift the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” the US leader said in a speech from the White House.
US President Trump announced his decision amid severe global criticism and warnings that the move would jeopardise the regional peace and create unrest among the Muslim block of the world.
Since 1995 it has been the US law that Washington’s embassy in Israel must be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as demanded by the Jewish state. But every six months since the law was passed a succession of US presidents have signed a waiver to hold off on a switch.
Trump’s announcement plunges the United States into a decades-long dispute over a city considered holy by Jews, Muslims and Christians, and flies in the face of warnings from US allies and leaders across the Middle East.
The US president was expected to stop short of moving the embassy to Jerusalem outright — a central campaign pledge which his administration has postponed once already. Trump was due to decide the matter on last Monday but his administration decided to delay the move till today, probably because of global criticism.
Pakistan has strongly condemned US President Donald Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, voicing its concern “over the implications of this decision for international peace and security, especially in the Middle East”.
Related News:
