Jordan’s King Abdulllah has warned that Israel’s planned move to annex parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank next month would threaten stability in the Middle East. In a video conference with US congressional leaders and committees, the king “warned that any unilateral Israeli measure to annex lands in the West Bank… undermines the prospects of achieving peace and stability in the region,” a royal palace statement said late on Tuesday.
Abdullah said that peace would only come with the creation of an “independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state” with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel had to withdraw from territory it seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Reuters quoted the monarch as saying.
Jordan, which has the longest border with Israel, is a close ally of the West and one of only two Arab states to have signed a peace treaty with Israel.
PM Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing a limited initial annexation in the occupied West Bank, hoping to quell international opposition, according to an Israeli newspaper report published on Wednesday. It has hinted at a possibility of annexation in two phases.