Papua New Guinea Will Open Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s FM Says

Papua New Guinea will open an embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced on Sunday. Cohen said in a tweet that Justin Tkachenko, foreign minister of the mostly Christian country, confirmed that his country will establish an embassy in Jerusalem; Israel and Papua New Guinea established diplomatic relations in 1978.

Opening a full-fledged embassy in Jerusalem is a controversial move since, while Israel considers Jerusalem to be its only capital, most of the international community considers Jerusalem or at least parts of it to be contested and a future capital for a Palestinian state. Most countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. The United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 and only Guatemala, Honduras and Kosovo have also opened embassies in Jerusalem. Several other countries maintain trade missions in Jerusalem, including: Australia, Brazil, Columbia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, Hungary, Paraguay, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Uruguay.