On a visit to Gaza and Ramallah on Saturday, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that Jerusalem "should be the capital of two states".
"I think Jerusalem can be and should be the capital of two states," Mogherini told journalists in Ramallah where she met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
Mogherini is on a two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, her first trip since taking over the post of High Representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy this month.
"Jerusalem is not just a beautiful city, the challenge is to show that Jerusalem can be shared in peace and respect," she said at a joint press conference with Hamdallah.
‘’The message is not for the people who live here, the message is to the rest of the world," she added. "It is not a Palestinian-Israeli situation, it is a global issue."
On Friday, at a press conference with Mogherini, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed criticism of Israeli building in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
"Jerusalem is our capital and as such is not a settlement," he insisted.
‘’Jerusalem is a very sensitive issue. We treat it with sensitivity, but it's also our capital and as such it is not a settlement, the neighborhoods in which we are living, Jews are living and we've been building, have been there for close to 50 years by successive Israeli governments. Everybody knows that in any peace arrangement they will remain part of Israel,’’ he said.