Russia has condemned Tehran’s remarks that Israel should be wiped off the map and also believes that solving any regional problems should not be viewed through the prism of a conflict with Iran, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

Tensions between Israel and Iran are escalating and there are historical reasons for that, Lavrov said at the opening of the Valdai International Discussion Club’s conference “Russia in the Middle East: Playing on All Fields.”

“We have stated many times that we won’t accept the statements that Israel, as a Zionist state, should be destroyed and wiped off the map. I believe this is an absolutely wrong way to advance one’s own interests,” Lavrov stressed.

“By the same token, we oppose attempts to view any regional problem through the prism of fighting Iran,” he noted. This is happening in Syria, Yemen and even the latest developments around the Palestinian issue, including Washington’s announcement of its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, are largely motivated by this anti-Iranian stance,” Lavrov emphasized.

On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump stated that time had come to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered the Department of State to start preparations for moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel insists that Jerusalem is its “eternal and indivisible” capital, whereas the Palestinians seek to make the city’s eastern part the capital of their future state.

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