NEW DELHI: India maintained a cautious silence hours before the U.N. General Assembly convened to vote on the draft resolution regarding the status of the city of Jerusalem. Speaking to the media, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that Arab diplomats have held consultation with India on the vote and that the Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar informed them about India’s traditional policy on Jerusalem.
“We should wait for the voting to happen,” said Raveesh Kumar, the MEA spokesperson, highlighting that India has policy on Jerusalem which does not come under any third party influence.
The Hindu had earlier reported that Arab diplomats had been reaching out to India to lobby for New Delhi’s vote on the resolution which expresses deep “regret” on the December 7 declaration by U.S. President Donald Trump recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“The meeting between ambassadors of the Arab states and Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar took place on December 11 to discuss the U.S. position on Jerusalem and on our part, he reiterated India’s position,” said the spokesperson. India has maintained since December 7 that it follows an independent policy.
The resolution became a contentious issue two days ago at the UN Security Council where U.S. opposed it. U.S. permanent envoy to the U.N. Nikki Haley declared that the U.S. will “take names” to shame those countries who oppose the U.S. position on Jerusalem. This was followed by President Trump’s Thursday’s statement where he declared that the U.S. may cut financial support to the countries who vote against its position on Jerusalem.
“They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” he said in the White House.
