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The Democratic Republic of Congo has announced it will relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, joining a small group of countries that have taken the symbolic step of backing Israeli sovereignty over the contested holy city.
After a visit by President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi, the two countries said in a joint statement that they would take steps for “the relocation of the embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem”.
No timeline was given for the move.
Tshisekedi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of their “shared commitment to strengthening diplomatic relations” during their meeting.
For years, Tshisekedi has expressed support for Israel, citing his Christian faith as the reason.
The United States, which has put more pressure on Rwanda due to armed rebel advances in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has also been eager to support him.
The vast majority of countries, if they recognise Israel, keep their embassies in Tel Aviv because the status of Jerusalem will be settled in a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Donald Trump shattered that consensus in 2018 during his first term by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, which is home to Israel’s parliament, prime minister and most other major governmental institutions.
Since Trump’s move, only a handful of small, US-aligned countries have followed suit — Fiji, Guatemala, Honduras, Papua New Guinea and Paraguay.
Kosovo and Somaliland, which are not member-states of the United Nations, have also opened what they consider their embassies in Jerusalem.
Argentine President Javier Milei, another right-wing Latin American who is an outspoken supporter of Israel, has promised to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem.
The shift has not yet taken place, however, reportedly due to disagreement over an Israeli company’s plans to drill in the British-ruled Falkland Islands, which Argentina claims and calls the Malvinas.
Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it, declaring Jerusalem, home to Judaism’s holiest site, to be its eternal, undivided capital.
