The Israeli Foreign Ministry has made it clear that pressure from some right-wing politicians to expel the UN from their Jerusalem headquarters will come to nothing.

Culture Minister Miri Regev and other members of the government have requested a discussion on the issue in the wake of the resolution passed by Unesco last week which criticised Israeli policy in Jerusalem.

However, Israel's Foreign Ministry officials told the Israeli press there was no legal way to expel the UN from their headquarters in the Armon Hanatziv neighbourhood of the city.

Furthermore, Unesco - the UN's educational, cultural and scientific organisation - does not have a permanent representative in Jerusalem and Foreign Ministry staff have sought to stress that the two bodies are largely separate.

Some have speculated that Ms Regev had confused the seat of Unesco with UNSCO, the UN's special coordinator for the peace process, which is based in Jerusalem.

Unlike previous Unesco resolutions that ignored the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the version that passed last Tuesday was much softer in language. Despite that, the news that the resolution had passed prompted a furious reaction from many Israeli politicians.