MNA – Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi strongly condemned US administration’s stance on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

On Monday, Pompeo renounced the US’s previous position on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which was that the settlements were “occupied territories,” and a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territories it occupies.” The US State Department adopted this position in 1978. Along with the US, most other members of the United Nations similarly considered the settlements to be illegal.

Mousavi said on Thursday that the new US decision shows the country’s partnership in Israeli regime’s occupation and crimes in Palestine. He also described the decision as a violation of the sovereignty of Palestine’s neighboring countries.

“Remarks and measures of Americans regarding Palestine is a clear violation of international law,” said Mousavi, calling on the international community to counter and condemn these actions.

“Palestine belongs to Palestinian people … and the only solution out of the crisis is to hold a referendum among original inhabitants of the Palestinian land.”

He also recommended Pompeo to abandon his 18th-century line of thought that believed those in power were beyond regulations and international law. “In the 21st century, neither America is the only power, nor anybody accepts the violation of international law by powerful countries.”

The territories in question, seized from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War, have been settled by over 600,000 Israelis, but are also home to some 2.7 million Palestinians, who are seeking to make the West Bank part of their future state.

After Monday’s announcement, Israeli regime's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the Trump administration for “righting a historical wrong,” and called on the rest of the world to “adopt a similar position.”

Palestinians condemned Washington’s move on Monday, with a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying the US decision “contradicts totally with international law,” and adding that the US was “not qualified or authorised to cancel the resolutions of international law.”

The Trump administration has had a tendency of running roughshod over the traditional proposed Israeli-Palestinian peace solutions, controversially moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing the divided city as the capital of Israel in 2018, and declaring the Israeli-occupied portion of Syria’s Golan Heights Israeli territory in March 2019.