Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled on Saturday evening to the United States, for a five-day visit that aims, among other reasons, to address the annual conference of the powerful Jewish lobby, AIPAC. The Israeli Prime Minister, who is hosted together with his wife Sarah at the Blair House, which is the official guesthouse of the White House, held an official meeting yesterday with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, during which Netanyahu thanked Morales for his decision to follow in the footsteps of U.S. President Donald Trump, to relocate his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognize the latter as the capital of the Jewish state. President Morales, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel, emphasized his countries staunch backing of his decision to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem, a position he later that evening reiterated, during his address to the attendees of the AIPAC conference. “On December 24th of last year, Guatemala was the first country to join the United States and announce that we will be returning our embassy to Jerusalem. I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way. His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right. It is important to be among the first, but it is more important to do what is right. Therefore, as President of Guatemala and the person responsible for foreign affairs policy in my country, backed by the constitution of the Republic of Guatemala, I decided to return the Guatemalan Embassy to Jerusalem. As a sovereign decision, we recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I decided to return the Guatemalan Embassy to Jerusalem. As a sovereign decision, we recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In May of this year, we will celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary, and under my instructions, two days after the United States moves its embassy, Guatemala will return and permanently move its embassy to Jerusalem,” Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said.
In 1959, Guatemala was the first country since Israel’s inception that opened an embassy in Jerusalem, but after international rejection of Israeli claims to the Eastern part of the antient city, following the 1967 Middle East War, the government in Guatemala city yielded to international pressures and relocated its embassy to Tel Aviv.
U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this evening at the White House, during which the two leaders held a one-on-one work meeting that focused on Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as well as the ongoing challenges across the Middle East, which both Washington and Jerusalem attribute to the destabilizing actions pursued by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Netanyahu is reportedly seeking to have a coordinated position with Trump by the 12th of May, which is the date on which the ultimatum that the American President gave to the world powers to fix the nuclear agreement is set to expire. Trump has already announced that he would not extend the eased sanctions against Iran any further, and that the United States would unilaterally withdraw from the nuclear agreement and would renew sanctions against Iran unless changes were made to the agreement.
Another topic that the two leaders discussed was the American peace plan that President Trump is expected to present in the near future, which aims at resolving the decades old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. A senior U.S. Administration official told TV7 that the peace initiative will demand a compromising attitude from both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships and will grant both nations significant incentives to stimulate their respective desire to follow through. Nevertheless, the official stressed, that “any final status agreement will be subject to direct negotiations” and “only the Israelis and Palestinians can determine their own future, for better or worse.”
Tomorrow, Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to address the AIPAC conference, after which the Israeli leader will travel to New York, where he will attend an event honoring Jewish Agency Chairman, Natan Sharansky.