Shortly after his election, Brazilian President-elect Jair Paulsonaro said he intended to move his country's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
If the elected president does so, Brazil will be the third country to move its embassy to Jerusalem after Guatemala and the United States, whose controversial decision over decades of US diplomacy has angered Palestinians and other countries.
In response to a question by Israel Hayom about his intention to transfer the embassy to Jerusalem, which he expressed during his campaign, Paulsonaro said that Israel "must be free to choose its capital."
"When I asked during the campaign whether I would do so after I became president, I would answer: Yes, you decide who is the capital of Israel and not the other countries," he said in an interview published Thursday with the paper to a supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Polsonaro, 63, won the second round of the Brazilian presidential election on Sunday, during which he made racist and anti-gay statements to be called Trump Brazil.
Netanyahu said that the election of Paulsonaru "will lead to a great friendship between the two peoples and to strengthen relations between Brazil and Israel."
Netanyahu is likely to attend the inauguration of the Brazilian president in January, an official at the prime minister's office told AFP.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and annexed it in 1967. The city then declared its capital a "unified and eternal" capital in 1980, in a resolution that was not recognized by the international community, including the United States at that time, while Palestinians demand East Jerusalem as the capital of their desired state.
On December 6 last year, the US president recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, ignoring warnings from various parties.
The US embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14, before Guatemala and Panama announced that they would follow Washington's example, but Panama backed away from the plan.
