Jordan's King Abdullah and Kuwait's Emir meet and call for Gaza ceasefire

Sheikh Meshal is on an official visit to the kingdom

King Abdullah welcomes Kuwait's Emir Sheik Meshal Al Ahmad Al Sabah at Marka military airport, in Amman, on April 23, 2024. Reuters

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Jordan's King Abdullah and Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal have called for efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza during talks in Amman, according to a joint statement released on Wednesday.

Sheikh Meshal arrived in Amman on Tuesday on an official visit, his first to Jordan since he became Kuwait's ruler at the end of 2023.

The two leaders "affirmed the need for the international community, especially the Security Council, to issue a resolution imposing a ceasefire in Gaza."

It should also "protect civilians and guarantee humanitarian aid delivery in all possible ways".

The King and Sheikh Meshal "reject what could lead to the expansion of the war, and the land assaults on Rafah". The area on the border with Egypt is perceived as containing a heavy concentration of Hamas fighters.

The two men also discussed "current developments".

"His Majesty warned about the danger of the latest escalation, which could push the region into a state of insecurity and instability," a Jordanian Royal Palace statement said, in apparent reference to the recent hostilities between Israel and Iran.

The king and his son, Crown Prince Hussein, received Sheikh Meshal on his arrival at Marka military airport in Amman on Tuesday.

Kuwait employs 64,000 Jordanian expatriate workers and is a main investor in Jordan.

Kuwaiti Finance Minister Anwar Al Mudhaf and Foreign Minister Abdullah Al Yahya are accompanying Sheikh Meshal on the visit.

Kuwait is among the six GCC countries that have been co-ordinating diplomatic moves on Gaza, while each maintaining their own position on it. Within days of Israel’s strikes on Gaza after Hamas’s attack on southern Isreal on October 7, the GGC foreign ministers met in an extraordinary session.

Jordan, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1994, has been fiercely critical of Israel for its conduct in the Gaza war, Officials in Amman have been also cautioning of a spillover in the West Bank, which could produce another wave of Palestinian refugees into the kingdom.

A large proportion of Jordan's 10 million population are descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled to Jordan when Israel was created in 1948, and in the 1967 Middle East War.