Japan FM discusses Jerusalem in Jordan

AMMAN - 26 December 2017: Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Tuesday held talks with his Jordanian counterpart, who said Jerusalem's fate should be decided in talks after Washington recognised the city as Israel's capital.

The status of the city should be decided "through direct negotiations and according to the relevant international resolutions", Ayman Safadi was reported by the Petra state news agency as saying.

US President Donald Trump's controversial decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital has triggered Palestinian protests and was rejected in a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution.

Only eight countries sided with Washington at the UN, including Guatemala, which said on Sunday it would follow the US in moving its embassy to Israel to the holy city.

In Amman on Tuesday, Kono said longstanding US ally Japan would not be shifting its diplomatic mission to Jerusalem, Petra agency said, agreeing that the city's status should be decided at negotiations.

Israel seized the eastern part of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.

Israelis see the whole of the city as their undivided capital, while the Palestinians view the east as the capital of their future state.

The United Nations has long said the only way to forge peace is to have two states -- Israel and Palestine -- with Jerusalem as the capital of both and the borders returned to their status before the 1967 war.

Israel and Jordan in 1994 signed a peace treaty, which recognises Amman's special status as official custodian of Jerusalem's holy Muslim sites.