AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Wednesday no peace was possible in the Middle East without the emergence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The latest violence — which broke out when Hamas militants assaulted Israel at the weekend — showed the region would not “enjoy stability, security or peace” without a sovereign Palestinian state on land that Israel had captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he said.
A two-state solution was the only option, the monarch told deputies in a speech at the opening of a new parliamentary session.
“Our region will never be secure nor stable without achieving just and comprehensive peace on the basis of the two-state solution,” the monarch said.
A two-state solution has long been the bedrock of international peacemaking efforts, but the process has been moribund for years and the possibility of it happening has dimmed even before the renewed bloodshed.
King Abdullah has since the start of the latest conflict been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic efforts with Western and regional leaders urging swift action to de-escalate the situation, officials say.
Officials said the monarch, whom US President Joe Biden called, will voice the kingdom’s concerns with USSecretary of State Antony Blinken when he arrives in Amman.
Blinken first plans to visit Israel, where he was heading to later on Wednesday.
With a large percentage of Jordan’s population made up of Palestinians, and Jordan sharing a border with the West Bank, which the Palestinians hope will be part of their own state together with East Jerusalem and Gaza, its position is sensitive.
“A Palestinian independent and sovereign state should be on June 4th, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and so that the cycles of killing, whose ultimate victims are innocent civilians, end,” King Abdullah said.
Amman lost the West Bank including East Jerusalem to Israel during the 1967 war. Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel is widely unpopular among many citizens who see normalization as a sellout of the rights of their Palestinian brethren.
The outpouring of anger against Israel also fueled a large rally on Tuesday in downtown Amman, where several thousand protesters chanted slogans in support of Hamas and demanded the government close the Israeli embassy in Amman and scrap the peace treaty.
The Israeli embassy, where protesters gather daily, has long been a flashpoint of anti-Israel protests at times of turmoil in the Palestinian territories.
Jordan’s king says no stability in region without Palestinian state
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Jordan’s king says no stability in region without Palestinian state
- A two-state solution was the only option, the monarch told deputies in a speech at the opening of a new parliamentary session
- “Our region will never be secure nor stable without achieving just and comprehensive peace on the basis of the two-state solution,” the monarch said
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
