The prime minister of Romania announced on Sunday that her country will move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, while the president of Honduras announced the opening of an official diplomatic mission in the city.
The pledges were both made at the opening session of the annual convention of pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC in Washington, DC that will run until Tuesday afternoon.
Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă told the audience, “As we all know, President Donald Trump opened the embassy of the United States in Jerusalem. This admirable and brave step impressed me, my government, and the Romanian people.”
“Moving the American embassy is emblematic, and it proves the connection of values and interests between the American people and the Israeli people,” she said.
“Also, this gesture has launched, at the international level, a process of reflection,” she added. “In fact, the Romanian government initiated the process of evaluating the opportunity of moving the Romanian embassy to Jerusalem.”
“That is why I am pleased to announce today, in front of this AIPAC audience, that after the finalization of this analysis, with all constitutional actors in the decision-making process, and in full consensus, I, as prime minister of Romania, and the government that I run, will move our embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel,” she declared.
It is unclear, however, whether Dăncilă will be able to fulfill her pledge, as her government planned to move the embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, issuing a government memorandum to that effect, but the move was blocked by President Klaus Iohannis, who also called on Dăncilă to resign over the issue.
The President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, recounted, “On New Years Day, I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Pompeo and our three countries issued a joint statement announcing an action plan that will culminate with Israel opening its embassy in our capital Tegucigalpa and at the same time, reciprocally, the Honduras embassy will be moved to the capital of Israel, the city of Jerusalem.”
“Here, at AIPAC today,” he declared, “I want to announce the first very important step, Honduras will immediately open an official diplomatic mission in Jerusalem and this will extend our embassy to the capital of Israel — Jerusalem.”
He noted that there will be opposition to moving the embassy itself from “radical groups in Honduras.”
“I know that, that’s for sure,” he said. “Those are anti-Israel and anti-US. But we can survive, we can resist the enemies of Israel.”
The Algemeiner (c) 2018 . Benjamin Kerstein
{Matzav.com}
