Jordan's relations with Syria are at a 30-year high point, former Jordanian prime minister Bisher Al Khasawneh told The National on Monday, two weeks after the kingdom carried out air strikes that killed at least seven people in southern Syria and damaged ties between the two states.
Mr Al Khasawneh, who also served as minister of defence during his premiership from 2020 to 2024, was speaking on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate on the day that Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi visited Damascus for the first time since the October 26 strikes. Jordan said the attacks targeted ISIS militants and were in response to a shooting at a Jordanian church three days earlier.
The meeting in Damascus of the Syrian-Jordanian Higher Co-ordination Council “brings together half a dozen ministers from Jordan and Syria to deliberate on advancing the bilateral relationship and advancing security and military co-operation”, Mr Al Khasawneh said.
“The relationship between Syria and Jordan has not been better since a least three decades, reaching a very, very high point in progressive and improved relations with Syria,” he added.
Jordan had faced challenges over border control under Syria's former president Bashar Al Assad “for the large part of the past 15 years”, Mr Al Khasawneh said. “That border was constantly on high alert and an entry point for a huge amount of drugs, particularly Captagon, and munitions, and that government didn't have operational control of the border, so our army had to police both sides,” he added.
The Assad regime, which was toppled in December 2024, was notorious for producing and exporting Captagon to nearby countries, including Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Last month, Jordanian border guards clashed with 14 armed men and thwarted their attempt to enter the country from Syria. The Jordanian military said border guards engaged “immediately and decisively” with the group, some of whom were injured and returned to Syrian territory.
Now, under Syria's President Ahmad Al Shara, Mr Al Khasawneh said the situation has improved. While their 360km border is not yet entirely secure, Jordan is assisting Syria in areas including security, administration, diplomatic training, institution-building and even electricity provision.
Jordan is also fighting battles internally. A terrorist attack on St George's Orthodox church in Hamoud on October 23 was the deadliest attack against the kingdom's Christian minority since the 1950s. Earlier this month, a Jordanian policeman was killed and another injured in what authorities described as a “cowardly terrorist attack” in the capital, Amman.
“The seeds and grounds are still there and the groups that had territorial control in Syria and Iraq are down but not out,” Mr Al Khasawneh said, in a reference to ISIS, which was territorially defeated in 2019.
The re-emergence of terrorist activity in Jordan is a reminder that the groups still exist and can “reactivate their cells through the decentralised mechanism they embraced after they dispersed as a result of their defeat”, he said.
Under threats from the Iran war, countries in the region have been scaling up efforts to integrate defence and military capabilities, most notably after Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed the Makkah agreement. Last week, Syria's Foreign Minister said the country was considering joining the pact, but Mr Al Khasawneh said he could not speculate about whether similar discussions were taking place in Jordan.
“The national security of the GCC [Gulf Co-operation Council] is a pillar of Jordanian national security and not just in the context of symbolism,” Mr Al Khasawneh said. He added that Jordan had “shown that our assets and soldiers are shoulder to shoulder with the GCC and other countries”.
