Trump undecided on recognizing Jerusalem as Israeli capital: Kushner

 Tel Aviv/Washington (dpa) - US President Donald Trump has not yet decided whether he will recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, amid speculation that such a move could come this week, his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said Sunday.  “The president is going to make his decision,” Kushner told a Brookings Institution think tank gathering about the Middle East in Washington. “He’s still looking at a lot of different facts.”  Trump was reportedly weighing announcing a move as soon as Wednesday, in what would mark a major shift in decades of US policy by both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have argued the status of Jerusalem must be decided as part of a peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians.  Kushner, who was making his first public remarks on the Middle East since being tasked by Trump with leading US efforts to jump-start peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, said his diplomatic team was “very focused on the deal.”   

Palestinian officials had warned earlier Sunday that Trump should not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and would risk jeopardizing the peace process if he does so.  “We warned the American side that, if the American government does in fact carry out that statement to recognize a unified Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and transfers the American embassy to Jerusalem, this is a step that will end any chance of a peace process,” Naabil Shaath, a senior advisor to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told the dpa on Sunday.