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Djibouti will not establish official ties with Israel until it works for peace with the Palestinians, said the president of the African Muslim state, Ismail Omar Guelleh.
In September, Palestinian Minister Ahmad Majdalani said Djibouti was one of five other Muslim-majority countries along with Oman, Sudan, Comoros and Mauritania that were in talks with Israel to normalize relations.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan were the first Arab nations to establish relations with Israel since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the establishment of ties to the occupation as a “treacherous stab at the Palestinian cause.”
In an interview with the French publication the africa report this week, Guelleh said “conditions are not ripe.”
We disagree with the Israeli government because they are denying the Palestinians their inalienable rights.
he said. “All we ask of the government is to make a gesture of peace, and we will do 10 in return. But I’m afraid they never will.”
He pointed out that the East African country has no problem with Jews as a people or Israelis as a nation.
“Some of them even come to Djibouti on business with their passports, and Djibouti citizens have been able to travel to Israel for 25 years,” he explained.
READ: Israel groups call on the United Arab Emirates to recognize the right of Jews to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque
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