Russia, Egypt, Jordan Weigh in Against Annexation

Russia and Egypt teamed up on Thursday to add their weight to international pressure on Israel to abandon plans for annexation in Yehuda and Shomron.

Sergey Lavrov and Sameh Shoukry, the foreign ministers of Russia and Egypt, respectively, issued a warning against extending sovereignty.

“The ministers noted annexing sections of Palestinian land on the West Bank of the Jordan River will threaten the prospects for the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem and could provoke a new and dangerous round of violence in the region,” Lavrov’s office said in a statement following a phone conversation between the two.

Contacts between Egypt and Jordan produced a similar statement: “Any unilateral actions” by Israel such as annexation could result in “disastrous consequences,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh al-Shoukry said after speaking with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman al-Safadi.

“[Both ministers] rejected the annexation of any parts of the West Bank to Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmad Hafez says, adding that the only solution was a return to negotiations and the two-state framework.