US President Donald Trump has not yet determined whether he will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, announced his senior advisor Jared Kushner.
The US leader also remains undecided on whether to proceed immediately in moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.
Kushner said Sunday that the president continues to weigh his options ahead of an announcement on the matter that is expected this week.
"The president is going to make his decision," Kushner said in a rare public appearance at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "He is still looking at a lot of different facts."
Reports that Trump may recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has sparked alarm among Palestinian circles and the Muslim world.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Sunday called for emergency Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation meetings to tackle the issue.
Shortly before Kushner spoke, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital would jeopardize the White House's Mideast peace efforts.
"Any American step related to the recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, or moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, represents a threat to the future of the peace process and is unacceptable for the Palestinians, Arabs and internationally," Abbas told a group of Arab lawmakers from Israel, according to the official Wafa news agency.
US officials said last week that Trump is poised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital in a move that would upend decades of US policy but also to put off once again moving the embassy from Tel Aviv. The officials said Trump is expected to make his decision known in a speech on Wednesday.
The highly charged declaration risks inflaming tensions across the Middle East, and US embassies and consulates around the region have been warned to expect protests.
Moving the embassy could spark widespread protest across the Middle East and undermine an Arab-Israeli peace push led by Kushner. Trump's campaign season promises won him the support of powerful pro-Israel voices in the Republican Party.
But as president, he has faced equally forceful lobbying from close US allies such as King Abdullah II of Jordan, who have impressed on him the dangers in abandoning America's carefully balanced position on the holy city.
Under US law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, the US must relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem unless the president waives the requirement on national security grounds, something required every six months.
If the waiver isn't signed and the embassy doesn't move, the State Department would lose half of its funding for its facilities and their security around the world. Republicans have championed embassy security since a 2012 attack on American compounds in Benghazi, Libya.
Trump is likely to issue a waiver on moving the embassy by Monday, the officials said, though they cautioned that the president could always decide otherwise.
All presidents since Clinton have issued the waiver, saying Jerusalem's status is a matter for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate. Trump signed the waiver at the last deadline in June, but the White House made clear he still intended to move the embassy.
Meanwhile, Jordan has begun consultations on convening an emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation before Trump’s expected move on Jerusalem.
Jordan, the current president of the Arab summit, would invite members of the two bodies to convene if the recognition is extended, to "discuss ways of dealing with the consequences of such a decision that raised alarm and concern," a senior Jordanian diplomatic source told Reuters.
"It could ultimately hamper all efforts to get the peace process moving and would certainly be provocative to Arab and Muslim countries and Muslim communities across the West," said he source, asking not to be named.
King Abdullah's Hashemite dynasty is the custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, making Amman sensitive to any changes of status of the disputed city.
