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Czech Republic Will Not Relocate its Embassy to Jerusalem

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. (Reuters)
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. (Reuters)
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Czech Republic Will Not Relocate its Embassy to Jerusalem

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. (Reuters)
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. (Reuters)

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that his country will not relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying that his government respects the European Union stance and United Nations resolutions on this issue.

No country in Europe wants to move its embassy at the moment and the Czech Republic will not be the initiator, he continued.

The PM affirmed that Israel is a longstanding ally to the Czech Republic, but it is also an EU member and UN agreements in this regard should be respected.

Last year, Czech President Milos Zeman inaugurated the Czech House in Jerusalem in what was interpreted as a precursor to the relocation of its embassy.

The United States had moved its embassy to Jerusalem in May 2018 despite widespread condemnation by Palestinians, Arabs and the international community.

Guatemala then followed. Honduras and Romania had revealed that they were considering such a move.

The Fatah movement welcomed Prague’s refusal to relocate its embassy in spite of American and Israeli pressure.

Fatah spokesman Jamal Nazzal said that countries’ ability to withstand such pressure and commit to international law reinforces the Palestinian leadership’s insistence on its rights.

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Putin Denies Russian Defeat in Syria, Says He Plans to Meet Assad

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)
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Putin Denies Russian Defeat in Syria, Says He Plans to Meet Assad

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not been defeated in Syria and that Moscow had made proposals to the new rulers in Damascus to maintain Russia's military bases there.
In his first public comments on the subject, Putin said he had not yet met former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad since was overthrown and forced to flee to Moscow earlier this month, but that he planned to do so.
In response to a question on the subject from a US journalist, Putin said he would ask Assad about the fate of US reporter Austin Tice, who is missing in Syria, and was ready to ask Syria's new rulers about Tice's whereabouts too.
"I will tell you frankly, I have not yet seen President Assad since he came to Moscow. But I plan to do so. I will definitely talk to him," said Putin.
He said most people in Syria with whom Russia had been in contact about the future of its two main military bases in Syria were supportive of them staying, but that talks were ongoing, Reuters said.
Russia, which intervened in Syria in 2015 and turned the tide of the civil war there in Assad's favor, had also told other countries that they could use its airbase and naval base to bring in humanitarian aid for Syria, he said.
"You want to portray everything that is happening in Syria as some kind of failure, a defeat for Russia. I assure you, it is not. And I'll tell you why. We came to Syria 10 years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there," said Putin.
"On the whole, we have achieved our goal. It is not for nothing that today many European countries and the United States want to establish relations with them (Syria's new rulers). If they are terrorist organizations, why are you (the West) going there? So that means they have changed."