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Jordan's King Abdullah Warns Against "Extremist" Arab Alliance
(Al-Hayat-Al Monitor) Tamer al-Samadi - King Abdullah II of Jordan warned last week against the formation of a new Arab alliance controlled by "extremism." Regarding Syria, the king said that the regime of President Assad "can hold for two years at the military level, but not more than four months at the economic level." He revealed that Jordan "will host Israeli-Palestinian meetings in February to support the peace process...based on an understanding with the Europeans and the U.S." The king said that "Jordan was severely damaged as a result of frequent interruptions of Egyptian natural gas, which cost the state treasury about 5 billion Jordanian dinars ($7 billion)," stressing that the interruption of gas ''is the real reason behind the economic crisis plaguing the country." He said that "Amman has bargaining chips through which it can send messages to Cairo, including the fact that 500,000 Egyptians are working in Jordan. Moreover, the kingdom is the only passageway for Egyptian vegetables being exported to Iraq, and tens of thousands of Egyptians working in the Gulf states are using the Nuweiba-Aqaba waterway in their travels." The Egyptian president later was reported to have phoned the king with a request to stop the Jordanian government's decision to deport thousands of Egyptian workers for violating residency conditions.