Peres Raises 'World Capital' Solution for Jerusalem
Tue Jul 22, 6:41 AM ET

Yahoo News


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Shimon Peres, the head of Israel's opposition Labor Party, has suggested resolving Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem by putting its holy sites under U.N. stewardship, a spokesman said Tuesday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Shimon Peres, the head of Israel's opposition Labor Party, has suggested resolving Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem by putting its holy sites under U.N. stewardship, a spokesman said Tuesday.


His plan calls for declaring a holy area of sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem's old walled city as a "world capital," with the U.N. Secretary-General serving as mayor, Peres' spokesman Yoram Dori told Reuters.


Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, including the Arab eastern part captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in a move that is not recognized internationally. Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) under a U.S.-backed peace plan.


Peres raised the idea in a meeting with visiting Russian diplomats-in-training when they asked how he envisaged a solution to conflicting Israeli-Palestinian claims to the city, Dori said.


Israel has previously rejected proposals raised by the Vatican (news - web sites) to internationalize Jerusalem.


Peres, a former prime minister and an architect of interim peace deals with the Palestinians, has not raised the proposal with Israeli or Palestinian leaders, Dori said.


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