Paraguay’s new president Santiago Peña will reopen the country’s embassy in Jerusalem, in a move that will see Israel reopen its embassy in Asunción, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced on Wednesday, ostensibly bringing an end to a rift sparked five years earlier.
Cohen made the announcement following a brief meeting with Peña, following his swearing-in Tuesday. Cohen said he invited the president to visit Israel within the year to dedicate the new mission and Peña accepted.
If Peña does follow through, Paraguay will be the fifth country to open an embassy in Jerusalem, following Kosovo, Honduras, Guatemala and the US; Israel sees the moves as strengthening its claim to the city as its capital, though most foreign countries situate their embassies in or around Tel Aviv.
In 2018, Paraguay’s outgoing president Horacio Cartes announced that his country would open an embassy in Jerusalem, following similar moves by the US and Guatemala.
But the embassy was moved back to Tel Aviv after just five months by Cartes’s successor Abdo Benitez, who said he hadn’t been consulted in the original decision and indicated that it harmed efforts to maintain a more neutral approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…Source – Read More!
Leave a Reply