Safadi noted that “the Islamic Awqaf Department, affiliated with the Ministry of Awqaf, is the body that has the exclusive authority to manage all affairs of the Al Haram Al Sharif, and this is the existing historical and legal status quo.”
Safadi said, “I recall that in 1930 the League of Nations, when the Shaw Committee was formed, affirmed that the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Haram Al-Sharif in its entirety is a place of worship exclusively for Muslims. The Security Council Resolution (478) rejected Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, and affirmed that Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian land. The (2334) resolution confirmed this situation as well, and the historical Hashemite custodianship dating back to 1924, which was confirmed in the agreement concluded between His Majesty the King and His Excellency President Mahmoud Abbas, confirmed this.”
“Our position is clear: there is no Israeli sovereignty over the holy sites. The Jordanian Awqaf Ministry is the only entity that manages it, and we reject any Israeli action aimed at changing the historical and legal status quo. We have said previously and are now saying that any attempt to change the historical and legal status quo in the Islamic and Christian holy sites is playing with fire and a provocation to the feelings of more than 1.2 billion Muslims, which is pushing the region towards more violence,” Safadi emphasized.
“We want calm, and we want to move forward in a practical and clear way towards peace. And calm begins with respecting the historical and legal status quo in the holy sites, and also begins with finding a political horizon,” he said.
“The Ministry of Awqaf appoints the guards at the Al haram Al Sharif in coordination with the Awqaf Department. No one has anything to do with this appointment, but there is the reality of Israel, the occupying power, which obstructs all or many of the steps taken by the Awqaf Department in order to maintain security and tranquility in the Al Haram Al Sharif that include preventing Awqaf employees from carrying out their role, as well as impeding many reconstruction projects,” Safadi said in the interview.
“The message is clear and the position is clear. Israel has no sovereignty over the holy sites. The occupied Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state, which must be embodied as a free and independent, on the pre-June 4, 1967 borders, as a way to achieve a comprehensive and just peace,” the foreign minister concluded.
Source: Jordan News Agency