Osama al Sharif
30th January 2020
al-monitor.com
It took the Jordanian government less than an hour to respond to the US peace plan following its release by President Donald Trump Jan. 28 at a ceremony held at the White House. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in a statement published by The Jordan Times that “the national interests of Jordan and its established and unwavering positions and principles toward the Palestinian issue governs the way the government deals with all proposals and initiatives aimed at resolving the conflict.”
Safadi reiterated his country’s support for an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital based on the two-state solution, which is the only way to achieve long-term peace. He also warned against “the dangerous consequences of unilateral Israeli measures, such as the annexation of Palestinian lands, the building and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands, and encroachments on the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, that aim at imposing new realities on the ground.”
This was Jordan’s diplomatic way of rejecting Trump’s plan without saying so directly. The Trump peace plan contradicts Amman’s position as well as that of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. The plan recognizes Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley. It also underlines that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel.
Jordanian officials have been in flux since the United States announced that Trump was getting ready to release his peace plan. Without access to its details, they knew beforehand that it departs from the classical two-state solution, which Jordan considers to be the only path to a just and lasting peace. In an interview with France 24 TV station Jan. 14, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said, “We need to have the plan unveiled for us to be able to see it from a point of view of the glass half full.”
