“The Israeli government expresses its regret and disappointment at Costa Rica’s decision to move its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv,” a statement from Israel’s Foreign Ministry responded. “This step, with its current timing, can be interpreted as yielding to terror and rewarding its perpetrators. A united Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the nation of Israel and its state, and this [move by Costa Rica] will not change our firm stand on this issue.”
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias announced the plans for the embassy move Wednesday, explaining that it was necessary in order for his country to be in compliance with international law. "It's time to rectify a historical error that damages us on the international level and deprives us of any friendship with the Arab world," Arias, a Nobel Prize laureate, announced. "This is not about offending the dear Israeli people with whom we have and will continue to have close ties... rather, it is about respecting international law."
Arias sits on the International Board of Governors of the Peres Center for Peace, but Israel Radio reports a call from Vice-Prime Minister Shimon Peres himself failed to change the Costa Rican President’s mind. Arias cited the fact that even Israel’s “closest allies,” a reference to the United States and Great Britain, do not locate their embassies in Jerusalem.
In 2002, before his re-election as president, Arias wrote the following: "The first day of my mandate, I signed a decree breaking my government's diplomatic relations with South Africa. It was a signal to the entire world that little Costa Rica was not identifying itself with the apartheid government in Pretoria.
"Today, 16 years later, I think that our government should, in the same way, send a new signal to the entire world by making a necessary rectification to move our diplomatic delegation from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv until a final solution is found regarding the new status that the City of Jerusalem should have.
"During many years, we deprived ourselves of having a real friendship with the Arab world, by maintaining along with just El Salvador, our embassy in Jerusalem.
The Foreign Ministry of El Salvador, now the only other nation to have its embassy in Jerusalem, issued a statement shortly after Arias’s speech, saying it would remain and leveling veiled criticism at its Central American neighbor. "Given the state of affairs in the Middle East, any decision on the location of the Salvadoran embassy should seek to aid the pacification of the region and not affect the fragile and delicate equilibrium that is being established," it said.
The US Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995, calling for the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv. A provision in the act, however, allows the US President to postpone its implementation through a waiver issued every six months. So far, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have prevented its implementation and US citizens born in Jerusalem do not have “Israel” written on their passports as their country of birth – instead the space is left blank.