Israeli president visits Jordan in latest sign of closer ties – officials

Jordan’s King Abdullah II meets with the Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz in Amman, Jordan March 29, 2022. Jordanian Royal Palace/Handout by way of Reuters

AMMAN, JERUSALEM, March 29 (Reuters) – President Isaac Herzog will make the primary official go to by an Israeli head of state to Jordan on Wednesday, officers mentioned, within the newest thaw in ties between two international locations formally at peace for almost three many years.

The Israeli-Palestinian battle, together with Israel’s almost 55-year-old occupation of the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem, has lengthy weighed on relations between Israel and Jordan, a lot of whose 10 million residents are of Palestinian origin.

The deliberate assembly between Herzog and King Abdullah follows talks the Jordanian monarch held with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas within the West Financial institution on Monday in an obvious try to decrease tensions earlier than the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Final yr, clashes erupted between Israeli police and Palestinians round Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque on the top of the Ramadan fasting month, violence that helped ignite an 11-day struggle in Might between Gaza militants and Israel.

In a press release, a spokesman for Herzog mentioned points to be raised on the royal palace embrace “deepening Israeli-Jordanian relations, sustaining regional stability, with an emphasis on the upcoming vacation interval, (and) strengthening peace and normalisation”.

King Hussein, Abdullah’s late father, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, after years of covert contacts.

Though his publish is basically ceremonial, Herzog has been a pointman in efforts to fix long-strained relations between Israel and Turkey, visiting Ankara earlier this month for talks with President Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier this yr, he additionally visited the United Arab Emirates, which together with Bahrain and Morocco normalised relations with Israel in 2020 in an indication of shared concern over Iran. Palestinians mentioned such Arab engagement with Israel betrayed their trigger.

The international ministers of the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt, joined by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, held a summit in Israel on Sunday and Monday. Jordan didn’t attend.

ISRAELI DEFENCE CHIEF VISITS AMMAN

However within the newest flurry of public and secret talks in latest months by high Israeli and Jordanian officers, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz met King Abdullah in Amman on Tuesday.

Gantz mentioned “the measures that Israel is planning to take as a way to allow freedom of prayer” in Jerusalem and the West Financial institution, an Israeli assertion mentioned, with out elaborating.

Citing safety considerations, Israel has imposed age limits on Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa during times of pressure and restricted Palestinian journey to Jerusalem from the West Financial institution, territory that it captured, together with the japanese a part of the holy metropolis, in a 1967 struggle.

Relations between Israel and Jordan had change into extra frosty throughout right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as Israeli prime minister, which ended final June.

Israeli settlement constructing and then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem, a metropolis on the coronary heart of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, as Israel’s capital in 2017 raised Jordanian considerations.

Jerusalem is a very delicate concern for Jordan’s royal Hashemite household, which has custodianship of Muslim and Christian holy websites within the japanese a part of town, an space managed by Jordanian forces from 1949 to 1967.

Reporting by Jeffrey Heller, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Nayera Abdallah
Modifying by Jon Boyle, Gareth Jones, William Maclean

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Rules.