Jordanian foreign minister in Ankara in sign of improving ties

Relations cooled between two countries in past decade, with major differences over Syria

Ayman Safadi is Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates. AFP

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi met senior Turkish officials in Ankara on Wednesday.

It was a sign of improving ties between the two countries, which differ on major Middle East issues.

“Jordan is the country we assign value to its opinions in our region,” Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said after the meeting.

After years of being sidelined by Donald Trump's administration, Amman sought a higher international profile since the election of US President Joe Biden in January last year.

The kingdom signed a military pact with the US last year, enhancing Jordan’s position as a base of US troops as tension between Ankara and Washington mounted.

Without criticising Ankara, Jordan also supported diplomatic moves by Greece and Cyprus to counter what the two countries regard as threatening Turkish actions off their shores.

Relations between Turkey and Jordan have worsened in the past decade over Turkish support for extremist factions in the Syrian civil war and Ankara’s backing of Qatar in disputes with other Gulf countries.

Jordan supported the 2015 Russian intervention, which propped up the regime of Bashar Al Assad but almost brought Turkey and Russia to war in northern Syria.

In the past two years, Amman has sought to accommodate the Assad regime, while Ankara remains publicly opposed to it.

Mr Cavusoglu said Turkey gives “great importance” to its relations with Jordan.

“We share many common challenges,” he said, a reference to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the two countries.

He said Turkish Airlines’ flights from Istanbul to Jordan’s port city of Aqaba would resume in the next few weeks and that his government supported efforts to attract Turkish tourists. Service on the route was put on hold early in the pandemic.

Mr Cavusoglu said Ankara encouraged more Jordanian exports to Turkey to redress a $1 billion annual bilateral trade volume heavily in favour of Turkey.

The ministers discussed regional issues as well as the war in Ukraine, he said.

Like most Arab countries, Jordan has refrained from condemning the Russian assault on Ukraine. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the assault unacceptable.

Mr Safadi is due to meet the Turkish president later on Wednesday.

He said Jordan agreed with Ankara that Syria must become safe enough for refugees to return voluntarily.