(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Sunday that a united Jerusalem was subject to no negotiation because it was at the center of the hopes of the Jewish people for thousands of years.
"Jerusalem belongs first and foremost to its people, and to all its residents," Rivlin said.
"We completed the physical unification of the city, but the task of unifying the city's social and economic lives has barely begun," he added during the Israeli government's official Jerusalem Day ceremony at Jerusalem's Ammunition Hill.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state in a move never recognized by the international community.
Palestinians want a state of their own in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with East Jerusalem € currently occupied by Israel € as its capital.
Jerusalem Day commemorates the occupation by Israel of East Jerusalem.
Rivlin said what he described as the "ticking bomb" that is the welfare of the residents of East Jerusalem, would not be dismantled by police and security forces alone.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Jerusalem would not become a "wounded" or "bisected" city any more.
"We will forever keep Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty," Netanyahu said.
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