Security Council votes on a resolution against Donald Trump Declaration

  • News
  • December 18, 2017
Security Council votes on a resolution against Donald Trump Declaration

The UN Security Council is expected to vote on Monday on a draft resolution rejecting the establishment of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, less than two weeks after the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The leaked text of the draft calls on all UN member states not to move their missions to Jerusalem.
Trump declared Washington’s new stance on December 6, saying at the time that the US would be moving its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The leaked Egyptian-drafted resolution, however, does not mention the United States by name, saying it “deeply regrets recent decisions regarding the status of Jerusalem”.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said it was understood that countries such as Egypt and the UK “wanted to try and keep the language as neutral as possible in a – possibly vain – attempt to keep the US from exercising its Security Council veto”.
This caused “a degree of anger” to Palestinian delegates who “wanted to single out the US by name”, added Hanna.
As it stood by Sunday night, the leaked text was a restatement of the UN’s position on Jerusalem as outlined through decades of Security Council and General Assembly’s resolutions, our correspondent noted.
It affirms “that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered, the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council”.
The resolution, however, is widely expected to face a US veto, which would render it futile.
The Security Council consists of five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US, as well as 10 non-permanent members.
A veto from any of the five permanent members would block the resolution from passing.

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