AL calls for ‘neutral’ US role in Mideast

Monitoring Desk

CAIRO: The Arab League on Tuesday urged the United States to play a neutral role for achieving comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East.

The call came at a resolution adopted by Arab League delegates at the end of their meeting in Cairo ahead of a potential U.S. move to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The Cairo-based league called on Washington to “continue to play a positive, fair and neutral role for achieving permanent and comprehensive peace in the Middle East”.

It described any recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or relocation of diplomatic missions to the city as “a brazen assault on the Arab nation and rights of the Palestinian people and a serious violation to international law.”

U.S. media said President Donald Trump was mulling the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and official recognition of the city as Israel’s capital on Wednesday.

Jerusalem remains at the core of the perennial Israel-Palestine conflict, which Israel occupied the city’s east during the Middle East war in 1967.

During his election, Trump promised to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Successive U.S. presidents of both parties have signed a six-month waiver since the Jerusalem Embassy Act was signed into law in 1995, perpetually forestalling the building’s legislated move over concerns it could spark a diplomatic crisis and be a death knell to peace talks.