Muslim nations have "rejected and condemned" President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and have called on the world to recognise east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
The Istanbul Declaration on "Freedom for al-Quds" — the Arabic name of Jerusalem — follows yesterday's extraordinary summit of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
The final communiqué is a softened version of an earlier draft. With it the organisation declares the US announcement as "null and void," while inviting Trump to reconsider and rescind the "unlawful decision that might trigger chaos in the region."
The declaration calls on countries who have not yet recognised Palestine to do so and invites "the whole world to recognize East Al Quds as the capital".
Trump's declaration last week upended decades of US foreign policy and went against an international consensus that Jerusalem's final status — one of the thorniest issues in the Middle East conflict — should be decided by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
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