In his speech during the emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo today, Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had warned that any US declaration on Jerusalem before reaching a final settlement would harm peace negotiations and make them more complicated, stressing that this is a provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world and a bias in the US position. The minister said, "I would like to thank the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for its request to hold this special meeting of the distinguished Council of the League, which comes in the wake of a very serious development in the recognition by the United States of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate its embassy there. "My government has already warned that any US declaration on Jerusalem prior to reaching a final settlement will harm the peace negotiations and make them more complicated. This would undermine all efforts in this regard and constitute a provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world," he said. Adel Al-Jubeir added, "My government, which deplores this step, believes that it constitutes a bias in the US position. It also violates the relevant resolutions of international legitimacy, which affirm that East Jerusalem is an integral part of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and considers Israeli actions and violations targeting the city of East Jerusalem and its sanctities, identity and demographic structure as null and void." The Foreign Minister pointed out that "in this sense, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia underlines the international consensus rejecting this decision." "The firm position of my country on the Palestinian issue places it in the priority of its foreign policy since the time of the founder, King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud - may God have mercy on him - until the time of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and gives it special care as the first Arab and Muslim cause. My country presented a peace initiative adopted by the Beirut Summit in 2002. It also won the approval of the Islamic world at its extraordinary summit in 2005 in Makkah. The Arab peace initiative laid out a roadmap for a final solution to all issues of the conflict and in the framework of the two states solution to reach the establishment of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of legitimacy. --More 00:57 LOCAL TIME 21:57 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/1696447
