Arab News | Jordan and Palestine condemn island nation of Naoero for opening embassy in Jerusalem

LONDON: Jordan and the Palestinian Authority condemned the decision by the Republic of Naoero, an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, to open an embassy in Jerusalem.

The mission was inaugurated on Monday by Naoero’s vice president and foreign minister, Lionel Aingimea, and Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar.

Fouad Al-Majal, spokesperson for Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the move was unacceptable and a blatant violation of international law, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The Palestinian Authority described the decision as an attack on Palestinian rights and a service to the Israeli occupation and its unlawful policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian News Agency reported.

Naoero is the third-smallest country in the world, covering an area of 21 sq. km. It has no official capital city and a population of 12,100. Previously it had a consulate on Hamelacha Street in Tel Aviv.

It is the ninth country to open of an embassy in Jerusalem since 2018, when the US became the first to do so under the first Trump administration. One of the others is Somaliland, a self-declared independent republic that functions as a de facto country, which opened its embassy in Jerusalem in June this year. Israel is the only country that recognizes the territory in the Horn of Africa as an independent and sovereign state.

Paraguay relocated its embassy to the contested city in 2018 but reversed the decision a few months later when a new administration came to power. Following another change of administration, Paraguay once again moved its embassy to Jerusalem in December 2024.

The other countries that have opened embassies in Jerusalem are Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.