(JTA) — Honduras will move its embassy to Jerusalem by the end of this year, the Prime Minister’s Office in Israel announced.
The statement Monday followed a telephone conversation the previous day between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Last year, Honduras recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and opened a commercial office in the city. The two nations and the United States had met earlier in the year in Brazil and issued a joint statement in which they agreed to strengthen political ties “and coordinate cooperation on development in Honduras,” as well as to “pursue a plan of action, which includes meetings in their three respective capitals, to advance the process of the decision to open embassies in both Tegucigalpa and Jerusalem.”
Hernandez graduated from an Israeli leadership course from the Foreign Ministry’s Agency for International Development Cooperation, or Mashav, in 1992 at the beginning of his diplomatic career.
“We hope to take this historic step before the end of the year, as long as the pandemic allows it,” Hernandez tweeted about the embassy move to Jerusalem.
Honduras has the second-largest population of Palestinians in Latin America, The Times of Israel reported.
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