Israel is pushing the entire Middle East to the brink of regional conflict, maintaining a dangerous escalation on several fronts, Jordan's foreign minister said today, quoted by Reuters, writes BTA.
Commenting after a ministerial meeting in Amman of a contact group of Islamic and Arab countries to lobby for a ceasefire in Gaza, Ayman al-Safadi said peace will not prevail without a two-state solution.
Safadi remains as foreign minister in the new Jordanian government that took office today.
The new reformist government, which will be tasked with accelerating International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed reforms and adopting plans for political and economic modernization, was today sworn in before Jordan's King Abdullah II.
The next in "Harvard" new prime minister Jafar Hassan has so far headed the monarch's office. According to officials and politicians, during his long career as a public servant, he proved himself a capable administrator and oversaw economic reforms as planning minister.
Politicians say the new government's key task will be to speed up IMF-backed reforms and curb the more than $50 billion in public debt.
Unemployment in Jordan is high and its stability is supported by Western donors with billions of dollars in foreign aid, according to Reuters. The representatives of the traditional status quo in the country have long been accused of obstructing the modernization that the pro-Western monarch is trying to push, because they fear that liberal reforms will weaken their grip on power.