New York, Jordan on Friday participated in the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, held to discuss Israeli violations of the status quo in Jerusalem, at a joint Jordanian-Palestinian request, and with the support of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab delegate to the Council, and France, China and Malta.
Delivering the Kingdom’s statement at the meeting, Jordan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Mahmoud Al-Hmoud, reaffirmed the Kingdom’s condemnation of storming the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Haram Al-Sharif by the Israeli Minister of National Security on Thursday, under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces, stressing that storming the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque is a provocative step that is rejected and condemned, and represents a flagrant violation of international law, and the historical and legal status quo in the city of Jerusalem and its holy sites.
The statement underlined the Hashemite Custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and the Kingdom’s continued efforts, led by the Custodian of Islamic and Christian holy sites, His Majesty King Abdullah II, to protect these holy sites and preserve its Arab, Islamic and Christian identity.
It underscored the Kingdom’s position rejecting any measures aimed at changing the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites, calling Israel to respecting for respecting it, and returning to the situation that existed before 2000, in a way that guarantees respect for the fact that the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Haram Al-Sharif in its entirety 144 dunums is a pure place of worship for Muslims, and that the Jordan-run Jerusalem Awqaf and Aqsa Affairs Department is the only entity that authorized to manage its affairs and organizes entry to it.
Jordan’s statement called for Israel, as the occupying power, to comply with its obligations under international law, especially international humanitarian law, with regard to the occupied city of Jerusalem and the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.
It also warned that the ongoing violations and assaults on holy sites, in conjunction with the continuous Israeli incursions into the occupied Palestinian territories, will result in further escalation and represent a dangerous direction that the Security Council and the international community must work to stop immediately, and that the dangerous consequences of unilateral measures aimed at imposing new facts on the ground, such as annexing lands and expanding settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, violating holy sites in Jerusalem, demolishing houses and expelling residents, which would push the entire region towards more tension and escalation.
Jordan’s statement called for finding a political horizon to re-launch serious and effective negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis in order to reach a peace that meets rights and is accepted by the people, and that the Palestinian cause was and will remain the first central Arab cause, and that the two-state solution that embodies the independent and sovereign Palestinian state with occupied Jerusalem as its capital on pre-June 4, 1967 borders, in accordance with international law, the approved references and the Arab Peace Initiative, is the strategic option agreed upon by the international community as the only way to achieve a just and comprehensive peace.
Ambassador Al-Hamoud rejected the accusation of the Israeli representative to Jordan that it had occupied the West Bank in 1950.
In response to these remarks, he said that Jordan never occupied the West Bank, and what happened in 1950 was a union between the two banks of the Jordan River for the Palestinians to exercise the right to self-determination, and half of the Jordanian government was from the West Bank.
He added that this accusation is only lies and misleading information promoted by the Israeli representative.
Source: Jordan News Agency