CAIRO: Amman hosted an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of Arab states represented on the Arab Ministerial Committee tasked with coordinating international action against illegal Israeli policies and measures in Jerusalem.
Representatives from Turkiye, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan also attended.
The ministers discussed developments in Jerusalem and efforts to formulate a unified position in response to escalating Israeli measures targeting the city’s identity and the status of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that Israel was violating the sanctity of holy sites and restricting freedom of worship.
Addressing the meeting, Safadi stressed that “an occupying power has no sovereignty over occupied territory,” and called for decisive international action to halt Israeli violations in Jerusalem and at its holy sites.
Nabil Fahmy, secretary-general of the Arab League, said that the region was facing “an inhumane and illegitimate situation.”
He warned that extremist settlers from Israel’s religious right were seeking to transform the conflict with the Palestinians from a political dispute that could be resolved into a religious confrontation governed by a zero-sum logic.
“Their first target is Jerusalem, because of its spiritual value and symbolism for everyone,” he said.
Fahmy said that Israel was seeking to impose a temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa Mosque, similar to what had taken place at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
He also accused Israel of deliberately and systematically undermining the role of the Jordanian Awqaf, the government body that manages Muslim holy sites, with the aim of weakening one of Al-Aqsa Mosque’s most important safeguards and threatening its identity and historical and legal status.
He said that the Arab Ministerial Committee had a pivotal role to play in coordinating the international response to illegal Israeli policies and actions in occupied Jerusalem.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said that protecting Jerusalem was not only a religious or humanitarian issue, but a fundamental pillar of any just and lasting peace.
He said that the Kingdom rejected attempts to invoke freedom of worship to justify measures intended to entrench a new political and occupation reality in Jerusalem or alter the historical and legal status quo at the holy sites.
Prince Faisal also said that Saudi Arabia welcomed US President Donald Trump’s announcement that implementation of the second phase of the comprehensive peace plan would move forward.
However, he strongly condemned Israeli military violations in the Gaza Strip, saying that they represented a direct challenge to the agreement, undermined its momentum and served the agendas of those seeking to derail the peace process.
Before the meeting, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held talks with Safadi on developments in Gaza.
Abdelatty stressed the need to implement all requirements of the US president’s peace plan for the enclave, including completing the first phase, ensuring full, safe and sustainable access for humanitarian aid, securing an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and moving ahead with early recovery and reconstruction programs.
