King Abdullah has reaffirmed Jordan’s “unwavering” position on Palestine and the two-state solution amid reports of US efforts to remove the issue of Palestinian refugees from negotiations in the Middle East peace plan it is formulating.
Chairing a meeting of the cabinet on Sunday, King Abdullah spoke of his recent meeting with US President Trump and administration officials in Washington DC at which he underlined Jordan’s “steadfast position on the Palestinian cause, which is based on the two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital”, according to a royal court statement.
During the address, a recording of which was published by the royal court on its Facebook and Twitter accounts, the monarch stressed that Jordan had not changed its long-held position on the two-state solution.
“I spoke with the president, the US administration and congress on regional challenges, and most importantly our position on Palestine,” King Abdullah said.
“Our position is steadfast, it will never change,” he said, adding “there is no pressure on Jordan”.
The king's statements come days after Foreign Policy magazine reported that Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law and Middle East peace envoy, urged Jordan during an official visit to Amman in June to strip some 2.2 million Palestinians in the kingdom of their refugee status.
The article included emails allegedly from Mr Kushner in which he indicates a desire to “disrupt” UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees that supports Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
According to a US administration official quoted by the Israeli daily Haaretz, "UNRWA's mandate has perpetuated and exacerbated the refugee crisis and must be changed".
The US position creates an awkward situation for Jordan, where nearly half of its 6.5 million population is of Palestinian origin, 2.2 million of whom are registered with the UN as refugees. The kingdom supports the Palestinian right of return to property they fled during the 1948 creation of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. At the same time, it is a close ally of Washington and currently receives more than $1.3 billion annually in US assistance.
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Read more:
Jordan warns of 'serious consequences' of revoking Palestinian refugee status
Editorial: Cruel demands to strip Palestinians of refugee status leave little faith in US role
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The US efforts to close UNRWA would place further strain on Jordan’s resources as it copes with an influx of Syrian refugees and an ailing economy. The UN agency runs 10 camps that house about 390,000 refugees in Jordan, clinics that provide health care for about 1.1 million, and schools in which 120,000 children are enrolled.
According to Palestinian sources quoted in Jordanian semi-official daily Ad Dustour, King Abdullah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet soon in Amman to discuss the latest developments, which are likely to include the peace plan being drawn up by Mr Kushner, details of which have not yet been officially announced.
In the same report, the Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, Attallah Khairi, welcomed King Abdullah’s statement and said Jordan’s principles and support for the Palestinian cause had not changed and that “no external power will be able to influence them or change them … no matter the size of the pressures.”
Meanwhile US legislators are seeking to restrict US recognition of and assistance to Palestinian refugees to only first-generation Palestinians who were directly uprooted by the 1948 war leading to the creation of Israel.
A bill introduced on July 19 by Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn, the "UNRWA Reform and Refugees Support Act”, would also redirect any assistance provided through USAID - which itself is barred by US law from providing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian Authority because of its alleged support of families of “terrorists”.
The bill claims that UNRWA employees have “frequently faced credible charges of working with terrorist groups” and states that the US should support the agency "solely to the extent necessary to accomplish its original and intended purpose to resettle refugees from the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948”.
The bill would limit US support to “those resided between June 1946 and May 1948 in the region controlled by Britain between 1922 and 1948” who were “personally displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948,” and who have “not accepted an offer of legal residency status, citizenship or other permanent adjustment in status in another country.”
A Republican senator, James Lankford, is set to introduce separate legislation that would require the US secretary of state to certify that the UN has ended its recognition of the descendants of displaced Palestinian as refugees by 2020, according to Foreign Policy.
By contrast, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees recognises the refugee status of the descendants of Afghan, Bhutanese, Burmese, Somali and Tibetan refugees - many of whom are now in their third generation.
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SPECS
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
Engine: 4 liquid-cooled permanent magnet synchronous electric motors placed at each wheel
Battery: Rimac 120kWh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) chemistry
Power: 1877bhp
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A Long Way Home by Peter Carey
Faber & Faber
The biog
Name: Atheja Ali Busaibah
Date of birth: 15 November, 1951
Favourite books: Ihsan Abdel Quddous books, such as “The Sun will Never Set”
Hobbies: Reading and writing poetry
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
Basquiat in Abu Dhabi
One of Basquiat’s paintings, the vibrant Cabra (1981–82), now hangs in Louvre Abu Dhabi temporarily, on loan from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
The latter museum is not open physically, but has assembled a collection and puts together a series of events called Talking Art, such as this discussion, moderated by writer Chaedria LaBouvier.
It's something of a Basquiat season in Abu Dhabi at the moment. Last week, The Radiant Child, a documentary on Basquiat was shown at Manarat Al Saadiyat, and tonight (April 18) the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is throwing the re-creation of a party tonight, of the legendary Canal Zone party thrown in 1979, which epitomised the collaborative scene of the time. It was at Canal Zone that Basquiat met prominent members of the art world and moved from unknown graffiti artist into someone in the spotlight.
“We’ve invited local resident arists, we’ll have spray cans at the ready,” says curator Maisa Al Qassemi of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi's Canal Zone Remix is at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Thursday April 18, from 8pm. Free entry to all. Basquiat's Cabra is on view at Louvre Abu Dhabi until October
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Engine: Turbocharged four-cylinder 2.7-litre
Power: 325hp
Torque: 500Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
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Starring: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi
Directors: Tarzan and Arab Nasser
Rating: 4.5/5
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
More on animal trafficking
More from Neighbourhood Watch
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
if you go
The flights
Air Astana flies direct from Dubai to Almaty from Dh2,440 per person return, and to Astana (via Almaty) from Dh2,930 return, both including taxes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Almaty cost from Dh1,944 per night including taxes; and in Astana the new Ritz-Carlton Astana (www.marriott) costs from Dh1,325; alternatively, the new St Regis Astana costs from Dh1,458 per night including taxes.
When to visit
March-May and September-November
Visas
Citizens of many countries, including the UAE do not need a visa to enter Kazakhstan for up to 30 days. Contact the nearest Kazakhstan embassy or consulate.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cyl turbo
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Transmission: 6-speed auto
Price: from Dh155,000
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: 2.9-litre, V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: seven-speed PDK dual clutch automatic
Power: 375bhp
Torque: 520Nm
Price: Dh332,800
On sale: now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets