Security Council rejects Trump’s resolution on Jerusalem

EPA

President Donald Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and begin moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv drew withering criticism at an emergency meeting of the 15-member United Nations Security Council in New York, Bloomberg reported.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, reiterated that the Trump administration supports the two-state solution if agreed to by both parties, and added that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is within reach.

“We are more committed to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace today than we’ve ever been before,” Haley said. “And we believe we might be closer to that goal than ever before.”

The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nikolai Mladenov, warned of the danger of a violent escalation over the US president's decision to consider Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"There is a real danger today that we may see a series of unilateral actions that will keep us from achieving our shared goal of peace," Mladenov told the UN Security Council.

The French delegate called for restraint and to refrain from fueling tension in the Middle East, saying that Jerusalem should be the capital of two states through negotiations.

"The issue of Jerusalem is of a special nature and its scope goes beyond Israel and the Palestinian territories," he said.

He stated that his country did not recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem and considered it part of the occupied territories, calling for respect for international law, protection of the two-state solution and the avoidance of escalation.

As we reported earlier, US missions across the Middle East are braced for a second day of violent protests over Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital after widespread clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces on Thursday.

Later CNN reported that on the day of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn texted his former business colleague about a plan to join Russia and build nuclear reactors in the Middle East. The project was "good to go," he told them, according to a summary of a whistleblower's account provided by a lawmaker.