Jordan's foreign minister to meet Blinken, tell Israel must stop war in Gaza

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will be meeting Antony Blinken on Saturday where he is set to tell the US Secretary of State that the “Israel war in Gaza” must stop. Safadi and Blinken are scheduled to meet in the Jordanian capital Amman. “They will discuss the catastrophic conditions in Gaza and will stress on the necessity of immediate action to stop the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip,” Ambassador Dr. Sufyan Al-Qudah, the official spokesperson for Jordan’s foreign ministry, said in the statement. Also, the Jordanian foreign minister is expected to discuss the “urgent and immediate delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, protect civilians, and the need for Israel to adhere to international law and international humanitarian law and stop its continued violations of it,” the statement further said. The foreign ministry of Jordan, through the statement, also warned that if the Israel-Hamas war does not end, it will lead to a regional conflict that will threaten world peace. Earlier this week, Jordan recalled its diplomat from Israel to protest Jerusalem’s bombardment of Gaza and the ensuing humanitarian crisis. Safadi said the ambassador would only return to Tel Aviv if Israel halted its war on the enclave and ended “the humanitarian crisis it has caused." “This is to express Jordan’s stance that rejects and condemns the Israeli war on Gaza that kills innocents and is causing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Safadi said in a statement carried on state media. The US downplayed Jordan’s decision to recall its Israel envoy. US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, “The Jordanian government can and should speak for their own decision. We still believe that — that there is great power and there’s great promise in a more integrated, more cooperative Middle East, and we’re not going to give up on that.” With inputs from agencies