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Jordan Slams UN Official for Urging Palestinian Refugees to Resettle in Arab States
(Jordan Times-AP-Ha'aretz) Jordan has condemned remarks by a UN official saying Palestinian refugees must not be deluded about their right to return and that Arab countries must resettle them. Wajih Azaizeh, who directs Jordan's Palestinian Affairs Department, on Thursday called remarks by Andrew Whitley, the N.Y. director of UNRWA, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, "irresponsible." Speaking at a National Council for U.S.-Arab Relations conference last week, Whitley said: "If one doesn't start a discussion soon with the refugees for them to consider what their own future might be - for them to start debating their own role in the societies where they are rather than being left in a state of limbo where they are helpless, but preserve rather the cruel illusions that perhaps they will return one day to their homes - then we are storing up trouble for ourselves." "We recognize, as I think most do, although it's not a position that we publicly articulate, that the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent," he said, adding that "It's not a politically palatable issue, it's not one that UNRWA publicly advocates, but nevertheless it's a known contour to the issue."