Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the country will continue to support the formation of a Palestinian government with Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.
Zarif made the remark during a telephone conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.
The top Iranian diplomat denounced the US President Donald Trump’s so-called deal of the century on Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said, “Iran will defend the Palestinian people’s rights to determine their fate and to form a Palestinian government with Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.”
Stressing that such plots were doomed to fail, Zarif hailed Abbas for his attempts to unite Palestinian political factions and vowed that Tehran would spare no effort to strengthen the resistance front.
Defying international outcry, Trump announced last Tuesday the general provisions of the plan at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side.
The scheme — which all Palestinian groups have unanimously rejected — largely meets Israel’s demands in the decades-old conflict, while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders.
It enshrines Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allows the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley, among other controversial terms.
Palestinian leaders, who severed all ties with Washington in late 2017 after Trump recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime, immediately rejected the plan, with Abbas saying it “belongs to the dustbin of history.”
Thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip poured out onto the street in immediate condemnation of the plan.
Muslims all across the world have also expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause and denounced the Trump's proposed plan.