TIRANA, Dec. 21 – Albania has joined 128 other UN member states, including most EU member states, at the UN General Assembly in approving a resolution rejecting U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
There were nine no votes and 35 abstentions, including from Western Balkan states like Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The vote is a departure from Albania’s previus UN votes, which have always been closely aligned with the United States.
Experts at the Albanian Institute for International Studies said the vote marked one of the best moments of Albanian diplomacy in the past four or five years, showing a positive and independent thinking in international affairs.
Albania sat in a tough spot as an aspiring EU member with a strong and close relationship with the United States — while at the same time having close relations with Turkey, one of the top countries pushing for the resolution.
In an official statement distributed to the media, the Albanian Foreign Ministry said it had kept same position as EU countries.
“Our vote today at the UN General Assembly reflects our unchanged position on this issue. Albania has maintained international consensus on Jerusalem based on a number of UN documents, including a number of Security Council resolutions, and it is united with the common position of the overwhelming majority of EU member states, consistent with its alignment with the European Union,” the statement said.
The United States had earlier threatened it would “take names” and cut aid to countries voting for the Egyptian-proposed resolution.
“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation. We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations. And we will remember it when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit,” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said.
The U.S. Mission to the United Nations quickly issued a statement seeking to portray the outcome as a victory because the vote could have been more lopsided. It cited the 35 abstentions, coupled with 21 delegations that were absent, representing a significant chunk of the total membership of 193.
“While the resolution passed, the vote breakdown tells a different story,” the mission said in the statement emailed to journalists. “It’s clear that many countries prioritized their relationship with the United States over an unproductive attempt to isolate us for a decision that was our sovereign right to make.”
U.S. President Donald Trump broke with longstanding U.S. policy earlier this month by saying the United States considers Jerusalem the Israeli capital and starting the process of moving the U.S. embassy there.
That announcement was met with a move in the U.N. Security Council on Monday to adopt a resolution noting its “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.” Fourteen of the council’s 15 members voted in favor of the draft resolution, but the United States used its veto power to block its adoption.
Trump and his U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, issued warnings ahead of Thursday’s General Assembly vote.
“They take hundreds of millions of dollars, and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. “Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”
Haley said after Monday’s Security Council vote, “The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy.”
At the U.N., several diplomats said they had received Haley’s letter, but did not plan to change their stance.
“Our position on this case has been very clear, we have had the opportunity to express ourselves in the Security Council, so that is our very strongly principled position,” said Sweden’s U.N. ambassador, Olof Skoog. “For us this is not at all about our bilateral relations with the United States, which is very good.”
Thursday’s emergency General Assembly session was requested by Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour, with the backing of Arab and non-aligned countries. Mansour said he hopes the measure receives “overwhelming support.”
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the resolution.
“Jerusalem is our capital, always was and always will be. But I do appreciate the fact that a growing number of countries refuse to participate in this theater of the absurd,” he said in a live Facebook video. “So I appreciate that and especially I want to again express our thanks to President Trump and Ambassador Haley for their stalwart defense of Israel and their stalwart defense of the truth.”
General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, but still carry moral weight, demonstrating the majority opinion of the international community.
