The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday confirmed its "total rejection" of the United States' decision to stop considering the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal under international law
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2019) The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday confirmed its "total rejection" of the United States' decision to stop considering the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal under international law.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington no longer considered the construction of civilian settlements by Israel in the West Bank "inconsistent with international law," a reversal of the position set up by the previous administration under President Barack Obama.
"Saudi Arabia confirms its total rejection of the US statement that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law," the ministry said in a Twitter post.
Meanwhile, Pompeo claimed that Washington's change of stance had no effect on the status of the Israeli-Palestinian border and that it was a question to be resolved through negotiations between the countries concerned.
Israel has been in control of the Palestinian-majority West Bank since the Six-Day War in 1967. Since then, more than 120 Israeli civilian settlements were built in the disputed area. Among international documents that codify the unacceptability of such practice is Article 49 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilian persons during times of war that reads that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
