RAMALLAH, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The caretaker government of the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday slammed the United States for its decision to close the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem and merge it with its embassy in the city.
"The American measure is a direct violation of the international laws and resolutions and its commitments to the laws," the government said in a statement after the weekly cabinet meeting held in Ramallah.
The U.S. decision is also "a clear violation of the Palestinian people's rights" and "a denial of the state of Palestine and the Palestinian identity," the statement added.
The Palestinian Authority has been boycotting the U.S. government since December 2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and decided to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the city.
Meanwhile, an EU official said on Tuesday that EU countries won't move any of their offices to East Jerusalem, in an apparent response to the U.S. merge decision.
"The EU is sticking to the European countries position which reiterates East Jerusalem as an occupied territory," Shadi Othman, an EU official in charge of media and communication in the European Commission, told Palestine Television.
"The EU is calling for finding a fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in accordance to the international resolutions, mainly the ones related to Jerusalem," he said.
