EU urges Isreal, Palestinians to make Jerusalem joint capital

EU: Jerusalem should be joint capital

BRUSSELS — European Union foreign ministers called Tuesday for the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians and urged them to make Jerusalem the shared capital of two nations.

Israel had strongly objected to an earlier Swedish draft resolution which explicitly stated that east Jerusalem — the disputed part of the holy city — should be the capital of a Palestinian state, and warned the move would damage the EU’s ability to be a Mideast mediator.

EU foreign ministers dropped that reference from the resolution, but reiterated that the bloc would not recognize Israel’s unilateral annexation of the eastern part of Jerusalem.

“The EU will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties,” said the ministerial statement. It was referring to the Mideast war in which Israeli forces captured east Jerusalem from the Jordanian army.

“If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found (through negotiations) to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states,” it said.

The Israeli foreign ministry said the statement ignored the refusal by the Palestinians to return to the negotiation table. “We regret that the European Union chose to adopt the text, that even though it includes nothing new, does not contribute a thing to this cause.”

But a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, welcomed the EU document. “We hope that Israel agrees to the principles contained in the statement, because this is the right way to launch serious negotiations,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo.

The competing claims to east Jerusalem remain the most explosive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

East Jerusalem is home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites. The most contentious is the disputed hilltop compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The Temple Mount, home to the biblical Jewish Temples, is the holiest site in Judaism. It also is the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. It’s this profusion of holy sites that makes the issue of the future of east Jerusalem so fraught.

Some EU ministers supported the original Swedish proposal but others said it would risk undermining efforts to restart peace talks.

“We are deeply concerned about the situation in east Jerusalem,” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said after the meeting. “We call on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of the Palestinians in east Jerusalem.”

The ministers took “positive note” of Israel’s recent decision to implement a temporary freeze on building new homes in West Bank settlements. But they emphasized that the settlements and a separation barrier Israel has built are on occupied land and that Israel’s evictions and the demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem were illegal under international law.

The resolution said such Israeli actions “constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible.”

Associated Press writer Barbara Schaeder and Mike Corder contributed from Brussels and Josef Federman from Jerusalem.