Tel Aviv [Israel]Australia denied on Monday that it had reversed a decision to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital under former prime minister Scott Morrison and said there had been no change in policy. Britain’s publication The Guardian reported that Australia’s foreign affairs department refused Foreign Minister Penny Wong after abandoning its stance to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, The Times of Israel reported. . Wong denied overturning a decision made by the previous government. A spokesman for Wong told Australia’s ABC News that the government “continues to consider the final status of Jerusalem as a matter to be resolved as part of any peace talks.”
“But ‘the former government decided to recognize West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel’ and there has been no decision by the government to replace it,” Wong said through the spokesman. The Labor Party vowed in 2018 to reverse Canberra’s move under then-prime minister Scott Morrison of the Liberal Party of Australia to recognize the western part of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital if elected.
Morrison sought to win the Liberal Party for another term in the May 2022 national elections, but lost to the opposition Labor Party led by the country’s prime minister, Anthony Albany, since late May, The Times of Israel reported. . Wong said in 2018 as an opposition senator that the centre-left Labor Party “does not support unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that the government will reverse the decision.”
“Australia remains an old friend and strong supporter of Israel,” Wong said in a statement on Monday. A spokesman for Morrison said the decision to reverse the recognition would be “disappointing,” ABC News reported. The country’s education minister, Labor lawmaker Jason Clare, said no decision had been taken on a possible reversal as the cabinet had not yet considered the issue, ABC News reported.
Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move that was never recognized by the international community. For decades the international community has maintained that the situation in the city should be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.