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CANBERRA, Australia — Australia has reversed a earlier authorities’s recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the overseas minister mentioned Tuesday.
The middle-left Labor Occasion authorities Cupboard agreed to once more acknowledge Tel Aviv because the capital and reaffirmed that Jerusalem’s standing should be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Overseas Minister Penny Wong mentioned.
Australia remained dedicated to a two-party resolution to the battle between Israelis and Palestinians, and “we won’t assist an strategy that undermines this prospect,” Wong mentioned.
Former conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally acknowledged West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2018, though the Australian embassy remained in Tel Aviv.
The change adopted then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s determination to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. President Joe Biden has saved the embassy in Jerusalem because the U.S. steps again from its once-intense mediation between the Israelis and Palestinians, who haven’t held substantive peace talks in additional than a decade.
Wong described Morrison’s transfer as out of step internationally and a “cynical play” to win a byelection in a Sydney locale with a big Jewish inhabitants.
Morrison’s Liberal Occasion ran Jewish candidate Dave Sharma who was defeated within the byelection however received the seat within the subsequent common election.
Morrison’s authorities was elected out of workplace in Could after 9 years in energy.
Nasser Mashni, vp of the human rights group Australia Palestine Advocacy Community, thanked the federal government for “differentiating itself from the harmful political posturing of the earlier authorities.”
“This reversal brings Australia again into the worldwide consensus — Australia should not pre-empt the ultimate standing of Jerusalem,” Mashni mentioned in a press release.
“Israel asserts that the whole metropolis is completely theirs, denying Palestinian connection to their historic non secular, cultural and financial capital,” Mashni added.
Opposition overseas affairs spokesperson Simon Birmingham didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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Comply with AP’s protection of the Asia-Pacific area at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific
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