Uganda is “studying” the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem, President Yoweri Museveni said on Monday, during a visit from long-standing ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Such a move would be seen internationally as a statement of support for Israel’s claim for the city of Jerusalem to be its capital, a potential political win for Netanyahu less than a month before March 2 national elections.
“If a friend says I want your embassy here rather than there I don’t see why there would be …,” Museveni said before trailing off and continuing: “we are really working, we’re studying that.”
“You open an embassy in Jerusalem and I will open an embassy in Kampala,” promised Netanyahu. “We hope to do this in the near future.” Palestinians claim East Jerusalem — captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war — for their own capital. But a peace plan presented last week by U.S. President Donald Trump envisaged a Palestinian capital outside Jerusalem’s municipal limits.
The Palestinian leadership rejected the plan and cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, on Saturday.
