[AFP]
Officials in Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh said Wednesday their countries had no intention of establishing diplomatic ties with Israel, after media reports quoting Israeli sources said that an Asian Muslim country would be among the next nations to normalize relations with the Jewish state.
The three Muslim-majority nations said they stood firm on their demand for Palestinian statehood as a precondition for opening relations with Israel, even after some other Muslim countries had agreed earlier this year to normalize such ties.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, doesn’t plan to develop ties with Israel, according to a spokesman for the foreign ministry.