MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay to shift Israel embassy to Jerusalem this year

Cohen met with Peña in Asunción

Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Paraguay would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem before the end of 2023. Cohen made those remarks after meeting with the South American country's new President Santiago Peña in Asunción.

“The president of Paraguay will inaugurate his country's embassy in Jerusalem later this year,” Cohen announced in addition to Israel's pledge to reopen its mission in the Paraguayan capital.

Paraguay had already moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 under President Horacio Cartes, but his successor, Mario Abdo Benítez, reversed that decision, due to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu closed the embassy in Asunción.

“The opening of Paraguay's embassy in Jerusalem and Israel's embassy in Asuncion will strengthen Israel's regional and international position and the important ties between the two countries,” Cohen stressed.

“We will continue and strengthen the important historical connection with the countries of Latin America, which stood with the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” he added.

Cohen also said the move would “strengthen the international status of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the State of Israel.”

Paraguay would thus become the fifth country with an embassy in Jerusalem, following in the footsteps of the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, and Kosovo. The latter is a landlocked state with limited recognition that declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Albania to the south, North Macedonia to the southeast, and Serbia to the northeast.

In 2018, the United States broke the international consensus by considering Jerusalem the Israeli capital and moving its embassy to that city, where there were no diplomatic missions after the Israeli annexation - in 1980 - of the occupied Palestinian eastern part. Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim the eastern part of the city should be their capital in a future state.