U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson concluded a visit to Jordan, where he met with the Jordanian leadership, including with his counterpart Ayman Safadi and the Hashemite monarch, King Abdullah the second. While his trip to Jordan focused primarily on signing a five-year aid package that extends U.S. support to its key Arab ally, amounting to some 6.4 billion dollars; the American top diplomat also discussed with the Jordanian leadership regional challenges, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the latest incident between Israel and Iran in Syria, as well as the tensions between Turkey and the United States regarding the latest developments in Syria.
On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Tillerson revealed that Washington’s peace plan was “fairly well advanced,” yet emphasized that it was up to President Donald Trump “to decide when he feels it is time… to put that plan forward.” With regard to Jerusalem, Secretary Tillerson reiterated his earlier remarks, in which the final borders in Jerusalem would be subject to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, rejecting claims that Jerusalem was taken off the table. The American top diplomat said, “With respect to the Middle East peace process, President Trump remains committed to seeing a Middle East peace process go forward, and as I indicated I think the decision taken on Jerusalem was about the United States and our recognition of Jerusalem and where we choose to place our embassy. But the president was clear, also in his statement and as I just indicated in my statement, that the final status, the final borders in Jerusalem are up to the parties to decide. So it does not preclude a two-state solution if that is the solution the parties seek, the U.S. would support that,” he asserted.
Tillerson also emphasized, in a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart, that the Islamic Republic of Iran should withdraw from Syria, citing concerns about recent confrontation between Iranian-backed forces and Israel. He noted, “We are quite concerned about the recent incident involving Israel and Iranian assets inside of Syria and I think this again illustrates why Iran’s presence in Syria is only destabilizing to the region. We think Iran needs to withdraw its military, its militia from Syria, and allow a hope for peace process to take hold in Geneva,” Tillerson said.
With regard to Turkey, which is the next stop of the American top diplomat’s Middle East tour, Tillerson emphasized that Washington still views Ankara as “an important NATO ally, and indicated hope of future cooperation that would ultimately lead to bolstering the national security interests of Turkey and would effectively alleviate the tensions between the two countries. He emphasized that “Turkey is still an important NATO ally of the United States, they’re still a very important partner in the region for us. And we need to find a way to continue to work in the same direction. We are committed to the same outcomes in Syria and we know that Turkey also has threats within Turkey as well as in areas surrounding Turkey, from areas out of Iraq, some areas out of Syria. And so, we hope to have talks about how we can work cooperatively to lessen those threats to Turkey but ultimately achieve the objective in Syria which is the full and enduring defeat of ISIS, the de-escalation of violence in Syria, and moving the Geneva peace talks forward. I think what will benefit Turkey the most will be a successful peace process in Geneva that stabilizes all of Syria,” the American top diplomat said.