Malawi Says Will Open Embassy in Al-Quds

Date: 04 November 2020 - 22:00

News ID: ۸۴۴۶۰

WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Malawi says it will open an embassy in the Israeli-occupied territories in Al-Quds, becoming the first African nation to do so in the contested city.
Malawi Foreign Minister Eisenhower Mkaka made the announcement in a video statement during a visit to the occupied territories.
The embassy is expected to open by the summer of 2021, the Zionist regime’s foreign ministry said.
Asked to confirm the embassy decision, Brian Banda, an aide to Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera, said: "Yes it’s going ahead, full embassy in Jerusalem (Al-Quds).”
The landlocked Southeastern African country of Malawi has had diplomatic ties with the occupying regime since 1964, but without opening an embassy in the occupied territories.
The occupying regime regards all of Al-Quds as its ‘capital’, although that is not recognized by the international community. Palestinians seek the city, which the regime captured in a 1967 war, as capital of its state.
Given the city’s disputed status and sensitivity in the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, most countries that have embassies in the occupied territories have opened them in Tel Aviv.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election on Tuesday, enraged the Palestinians and angered many world leaders by recognizing Al-Quds as the ‘capital’ of the Zionist regime in late 2017. He moved the U.S. embassy there the following year.
Guatemala moved its embassy to Al-Quds soon afterwards, and Honduras has said it aims to do the same by the end of 2020. Brazil and the Dominican Republican are also considering the move.
In a related development, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has reiterated support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.
Our position on the justice of the Palestinian issue and the right of the Palestinians to an independent state within the 1967 borders remains unchanged, Al Thani said on Tuesday, Al Jazeera reported.