Pence: US Embassy in Jerusalem will open next year

A new US embassy in Israel, located in Jerusalem, will open in 2019, Vice President Mike Pence told the Israeli parliament Monday, putting a timeline on a move that has proven controversial in the region and around the world.

The embassy move was expected to take as long as four years, but according to Pence the timeline has been moved up.

Vice President Mike Pence announced on Monday that the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem will open by the end of 2019.

His first stop was Cairo where he pledged the US would continue to support Egypt in its battle against terrorism.

Trump and Pence both said that the U.S. would not make any decisions on the borders of an East and West Jerusalem, or a final status agreement of the city, which has always been considered to be determined by negotiations. The members were forcefully removed from the hall.

The king said on Sunday he hoped Pence’s visit, the second leg of his regional visit, would “rebuild trust and confidence” after the USA decision last month to name Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Before Abbas’ arrival, she was more outspoken, saying: “Clearly there is a problem with Jerusalem”.

Jerusalem is a central issue in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as both sides claim the city as their capital.

It is the highest-level visit by a USA official to the region since December, when Trump upended decades of United States policy on Jerusalem in a move opposed by Arab leaders including Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“It is an honor for me to stand before you today in Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel”, said Pence. But she added via Twitter that there were some signs of dissent when Pence spoke to the legislature.

As the leaders sat down to meet, a reporter asked if the U.S. Embassy can be moved to Jerusalem by next year.

In a statement on her Facebook page, Israel’s Culture Minister, Miri Regev, called Pence “a very welcome guest here” and thanked him and Trump for endorsing the Israeli claim to Jerusalem and for cutting funding for the United Nations agency.

Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, the U.S. administration has questioned whether or not to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, a plan that stipulates the lifting of global sanctions against Tehran.

In a new expression of that snub, Abbas overlapped with Pence in Jordan from Saturday evening to midday Sunday, when the Palestinian leader flew to Brussels for a meeting with European Union foreign ministers Monday.

‘The Palestinian Authority has been absent from direct negotiations since 2014.

“The United States of America will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon”, he said.