JERUSALEM, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Costa Rica and El Salvador have moved their embassies in Israel to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, leaving the ancient city with no foreign embassies.
While Israel considers Jerusalem its capital, the United Nations in a 1947 resolution designated the city as a place to be kept under international control. The United Nations did not recognize the annexation by Israel and Jordan of parts of the city or Israel's annexation of the entire city after the 1967 war.
President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica announced first that he had decided to move the embassy in order to conform with international law, AsiaNews reported. El Salvador then followed suit.
Israel had reportedly given the two countries financial inducements to locate their embassies in Jerusalem after the 1967 war.
In 1999, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution ordering the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem. But legislators have allowed the government to postpone the move with a series of six-month extensions.
