Czech President Milos Zeman, who starts Monday an official visit in Israel, has proposed to move the Czech embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 4
At the Days of Israel last week in the city of Hradec Kralove, Zeman said he would try to persuade the new Czech Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to consider the move.
Zeman appointed in July a caretaker government led by Jiri Rusnok after the previous right-wing government's collapsed. The cabinet is leading the country to the early general election, due on October 25-26.
He declared: "I've appointed a cabinet of which I can say for sure that if it stayed in office longer, it could support this idea(of moving the Czech embassy to Jerusalem). Since the early election will be held, I'll wait to see what the new government will be like and I will try to persuade the new Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to consider the idea."
A majority of countries have their embassies in Israel in Tel Aviv.
In a recent interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Zeman, a former Prime Minister, said Palestinian refugees should not insist on returning to the Palestinian autonomous areas. According to Zeman, it would be better to send them to Saudi Arabia.
The Czech president starts Monday a four-day visit to Israel during which he will meet his counterpart Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Czech Republic is one of Israel's staunchest allies within the European Union.
In November 2012, the Czech Republic stood with the US and Canada and a handful of other countries in opposing the Palestinian Authority’s bid to upgrade the Palestinian UN status and was the only EU member state to do so.
Then Czechoslovakia supplied arms to the nascent State of Israel in 1947 and was one of the 33 member-countries of the United Nations that voted in favor of the partition of Palestine in November 1947.
It recognized Israel on May 18, 1948, and established diplomatic relations with Israel in July 1948.
Diplomatic relations were severed in 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War, and were restored in February 1990 following Czechoslovakia’s 1989 Velvet Revolution.
The Czechs returned to their old embassy in Tel Aviv, and after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia into two separate states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, each established diplomatic relations with Israel.