Jordan: Israeli Must Give Up Land To 'Co-exist'
In an interview published in the Middle East Times, Jordan's King Abdullah says that in order for Israel to establish peace and stability with its neighbors, it must give up 'occupied' territory from its' previous wars:
AMMAN -- Jordan's King Abdullah II urged Israel to end its occupation of Arab land to guarantee peaceful coexistence with the world's Muslims and warned against a hasty US troop pullout from Iraq, in an interview Tuesday.
"Israel, the European states, and the United States should realize that the Palestinian issue does not only concern the Palestinians but also has the sympathy of all Muslims from Indonesia to the Maghreb states," he said.
"If Israel wants to coexist with more than 1 billion Muslims, it should end its occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands."
The King's views on a U.S pullout from Iraq:
"Withdrawal from Iraq without setting a timetable and without preparing the necessary conditions that would ensure a strong central government able to run the affairs of the state and an Iraqi force able to ensure security and stability, may only worsen the problem and contribute to increasing violence and conflict among Iraqis," he said.
For the Jordanian monarch "the problem with Iraq is that Iraqis themselves are divided between those supporting US-led coalition forces in their country, those rejecting and resisting them as occupation, and those that seek to disrupt the political process and national reconciliation efforts."
|