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Last update - 22:46 16/10/2005 Jordanian king promises Abbas to rally support for Mideast peace By The Associated Press Jordan's King Abdullah II promised Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday to continue rallying international support for Mideast peacemaking and offered him help to take control of the Gaza Strip, from which Israel completed its disengagement last month. Abdullah, who met Abbas in a closed-door meeting at a hilltop Amman palace, said Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip last month "must be followed by other withdrawals from the West Bank as stipulated in the road map" - the U.S.-backed peace...

Saturday, the president, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice met with Pakistan's President Musharraf at the White House. Bush said, "We discussed international politics. I assured President Musharraf that there is an opportunity at hand to work toward the development of a Palestinian state and peace in the Middle East." He gave his radio address, saying, "We must do everything necessary to confront and defeat the terrorist threat, and that includes intelligence reform. By remaining focused and determined in these efforts, we will strengthen the safety of our citizens and defend our nation from harm." Vice President...

Jordan's king receives credentials of new Israeli ambassador By The Associated Press AMMAN - King Abdullah II received the credentials Sunday of Israel's new ambassador to Jordan, the official Petra news agency said. Yacov Hadas, 46, arrived in Jordan on Thursday to replace David Dadonn, who has been appointed Israel's ambassador to Mexico. Hadas, who was formerly the head of Israel's trade mission to Qatar, is Israel's fourth ambassador to Jordan since the two neighbors established relations after signing a peace treaty in 1994. Jordan was the second Arab country to exchange ambassadors with Israel after Egypt. Mauritania became the...

Washington is searching for a successor regime to Saddam Hussein. It is an exercise in political science. Can an even passably democratic government be devised to take the place of a dictator who has stripped his people of decency and trust in others? Iraqis of all sorts are putting themselves forward: dissidents and exiles, former army officers who fled from Saddam in fear of their lives, men of substance certainly. But how representative are they? Why should Iraqis have confidence in self-selected and evidently ambitious leaders whose legitimacy is questionable? This is where the Hashemite family comes in. The last...

The Bush administration has acquired evidence that Jordan's King Abdullah II, once a cornerstone of US policy against Iraq, is in fact working closely with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to senior political sources here. The sources declined to indicate the precise nature of the evidence, but they say it is damning and irrefutable. Among the most sensational charges, they said, is that Abdullah has been passing sensitive American intelligence material to Saddam and that he has received substantial "gifts" from Baghdad. The sources allege that Abdullah is also "very handsomely rewarded" by Saddam for facilitating the passage of illicit,...

Amman to Aqaba DEBKAfile Exclusive Reportp21 April: Jordan’s King Abdullah II flew to Cairo Sunday, April 21 to confer with President Hosny Mubarak of Egypt on the current Middle East crisis and the rising ferment in their countries. The two leaders are in close coordination on the problem of Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. On Saturday, April 20, DEBKAfile first revealed the plan under discussion in Washington, Jerusalem, Cairo and Amman to shift Arafat to Gaza and restrict his rule to the Gaza Strip under close Egyptian supervision, leaving the West Bank under local Palestinian government and shared Jordanian...