TEL AVIV — At least ten countries are in talks with Israel to move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said on Monday.
The deputy minister’s comment, in an interview with Israel Radio, was made after Guatemala announced that it would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
According to a report by Channel 10, one of the next countries is likely to be Honduras, a state with which Israel has close economic ties.
Israel and Honduras have been cultivating a flourishing bilateral relationship over the past few years. Last year, the two countries signed an accord under which Israel agreed to enhance the Central American country’s armed forces in an unprecedented way in order to fight organized crime.
The Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was reelected earlier this month in a hotly disputed election, is a graduate of MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation, and he has spent time in the country.
Along with Guatemala, Honduras was one of nine nations that voted “no” with the United States when the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution denouncing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem.
Other countries reportedly in talks to move their embassies are South America’s Paraguay and the west African nation of Togo. The Czech Republic has also recognized West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Russia did the same in April.
