The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul the second, has set the year two thousand as a target date for international recognition of the sacred status of the city of Jerusalem.

At a Vatican ceremony for the appointment of new ambassadors to the Holy See -- one of whom was the Jordanian envoy, Adnan Altal Houni -- the Pope said that the city ought to become a place where all peoples of the world can meet.

In 1980 Israel declared the city the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state.